Netflix’s latest hit crime drama, Outlawbased on the real life of Brazilian Raquel de Oliveira.
The streaming biography of the crime lord is based on Oliveira’s 2015 Book Number onewhich tells the story of Oliveira’s life from the streets of Rio de Janeiro to the top of one of the world’s largest drug cartels.
writer/director João Wainer has turned Oliveira’s story into a hit Netflix movie, bringing his harrowing story to the big screen for the first time.
The real-life outlaw story of Raquel de Oliveira
Raquel de Oliveira’s life is recorded quite accurately on Netflix Outlaw a film that shows the real-life story of how he climbed the ladder to become one of Rio de Janeiro’s most feared drug lords.
Oliveira was born incredibly poor in Rio’s Rocinha favela in 1961. His early life was unfortunately typical of many who grew up in the poorest areas of Brazil. Drugs, sex work and violent crime were normal during Oliveira’s early life.
His first home was a makeshift shack in the hills of Rio with a corrugated metal roof and dirt floor. She describes that part of her life as horrendous, living with a family who were down on their luck and a father she has since called a “pedophile”. (via Yahoo News).
At the age of six, his father abandoned the family, locked the cabin behind him and left them behind. He would never see or hear from her again.
Here, as a youngster, Oliveira used an illegal drug for the first time, sniffing glue, hopefully to curb the constant feeling of hunger in his stomach.
She would live like this for several years before her grandmother sold her in a sex shop at just nine years old.
Oliveira basically spent his formative years in Rio’s many brothels. At the age of 11, a local crime boss “the godfather” gave him his first gun, and then at the age of 15, he committed his first murder, murdering a man in cold blood after he tried to rape him during a drug deal.
It wasn’t until a while later that Oliveira began paving his path towards the ruthless crime boss he would eventually be known as.
At the age of 25, Oliveira started dating and eventually married famous drug lord Ednaldo de Souza, aka “Naldo”. Naldo worked as a director of the drug trade in Rio’s largest favela, La Rocinha, during a particularly violent period for the city in the 1980s.
Being so close to someone so notorious in the Brazilian drug trade also brought Oliveira a certain kind of fame. Just as Naldo was respected and feared, so was Oliviera.
As a result, Oliveira took over his crime empire after a bloody shootout with local authorities that left her crime boss husband dead, cementing his place among Brazil’s most feared kingpins.
During this time, Oliveira became known as particularly ruthless. According to some of his former associates (via the Daily Mail ), the former Brazilian drug kingpin would often bury his enemies alive if not shoot them in cold blood.
He wasn’t going to let anyone stand in his way, and everyone knew it. However, throughout his life up until now, he had not only been involved in the sale and production of drugs, he had also often used them himself, and over the years he had developed a serious cocaine habit.
However, this growing addiction to cocaine eventually becomes too much for Oliveira. After years of working at the top of Rio’s underworld, Oliveira turned his back on that life after a rival gang attempted to take his life in a local Rio bar.
He checked into a rehabilitation center in 2005 and began writing, finding solace in the words on the page.
“Writing gives me pleasure. It replaces cocaine. It helps me escape the pain,” Oliveira told AFP (via Global Times) in 2015. He has spoken of losing everything, essentially “sucking up” all his resources and understanding. he needed help.
To pursue his new passion for writing, Oliveira found a Brazilian organization, the International Literary Fair of the Periphery (FLUPP).
A literary festival forced her to begin writing her first book, put into words the amazing life she had lived up to that point, and make shocking realizations about some of the people she had once called family and friends.
Oliveira is now 63 years old and has been sober for almost 20 years.
Outlaw streaming now on Netflix.
