Brazil's biggest cocaine supplier arrested in Mozambique

Gilberto 'Fuminho' Aparecido dos Santos had been on the run for over 20 years before the international sting this week

Soldiers from the Mozambican army patrol the streets in Mocimboa da Praia, Mozambique. AFP

One of Brazil's most wanted criminals, an alleged drug lord accused of running the international cocaine operation of the country's biggest gang, has been arrested in Mozambique.

Gilberto "Fuminho" Aparecido dos Santos, an alleged leader of the First Capital Command (PCC), was arrested in an international sting that included agents from Brazil, Mozambique and the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

He is accused of shipping tons of cocaine around the world, the Brazilian federal police said in a statement.

"The accused was considered the largest cocaine supplier" for the PCC and had been on the run for more than 20 years, it said.

Born in the prisons of Sao Paulo in the 1990s, the PCC is considered Brazil's top criminal gang, with increasing control over the cocaine supply routes from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, the world's biggest producers.

Its leader, Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, is serving a sentence of more than 200 years in a maximum-security prison in Brasilia.

Mr Dos Santos is accused, among other things, of financing a plot to help Camacho escape, police said.