Raquel de Oliveira’s True ‘Outlaw’ Story Explained

Netflix’s latest hit crime drama, Ballingis based on the true story of Brazilian Raquel de Oliveira.

The streaming crime lord biopic is based on Oliveira’s 2015 book A number onewhich tells the story of Oliveira’s life from the streets of Rio de Janeiro to the top of one of the largest drug cartels in the world.

Oliveira’s story has been adapted into a Netflix blockbuster by writer/director João Wainer, bringing her shocking story to the screen for the first time.

The Real Outlaw Story of Raquel de Oliveira

Raquel de Oliveira’s life is captured fairly accurately in the Netflix series Balling film that tells the true story of how she rose to become one of Rio de Janeiro’s most feared drug lords.

Oliveira was born in 1961 in the Rocinha favela in Rio. Her early life was one that is unfortunately typical of many who grew up in Brazil’s poorest neighborhoods. Drugs, sex work, and violent crime were the norm during Oliveira’s early life.

Her first home was a makeshift hut in the hills of Rio with a corrugated iron roof and dirt floor. She describes that part of her life as horrible, living with a down-on-her-luck family and a father she has since referred to as a “paedophile”. (via Yahoo News).

At the age of six, her father would leave the family, lock the cabin behind him, and leave them in his rearview mirror. She would never see or hear from him again.

At this young age, Oliveira first used drugs, sniffing glue in the hope of satisfying the ever-present hunger pang in her stomach.

She lived like this for several more years, until she was sold into the sex industry by her grandmother at the age of nine.

Oliveira spent her formative years, in fact, in Rio’s many brothels. At age 11, she was given her first gun by a local crime boss, the “godfather,” and at 15, she would commit her first murder, killing a man in cold blood after he tried to rape her during a drug deal.

Not long after, Oliveira began paving her way to becoming the ruthless crime boss she would later become.

At the age of 25, Oliveira began dating and eventually married the notorious drug lord Ednaldo de Souza, or “Naldo.” Naldo was the head of the drug trade in Rio’s largest favela, La Rocinha, during a period of particular violence in the city in the 1980s.

Being so close to someone so notorious in the Brazilian drug trade also brought Oliveira a certain kind of notoriety. Just as Naldo was respected and feared, so was Oliviera.

Therefore, after a bloody shootout with local authorities that left her criminal husband dead, Oliveira took over Oliveira’s criminal empire and consolidated her position as one of Brazil’s most feared criminals.

During this time, Oliveira became known as particularly ruthless. According to some of her former associates (via the Daily Mail ), the former Brazilian drug lord would often bury her enemies alive, or instead shoot them in cold blood.

She wouldn’t let anyone stand in her way, and everyone knew it. But throughout her life up until this point, she was not only involved in the sale and production of drugs, but was also a frequent user herself, developing a serious cocaine addiction over the years.

This growing dependency on cocaine would eventually prove too much for Oliveira. After years of working at the top of Rio’s underworld, Oliveira turned her back on that life after a rival gang attempted to murder her in a local Rio bar.

In 2005, she checked into a rehabilitation center and began writing, finding solace in the words on paper.

“Writing gives me pleasure. It replaces cocaine. It helps me escape from the pain,” Oliveira told AFP (via Global Times) in 2015. She spoke of losing everything, “snorting” all her resources and realizing she needed help.

Her new passion for writing led Oliveira to discover the Brazilian organization International Literary Fair of the Periphery (FLUPP).

The literary festival would inspire her to begin writing her first book, in which she would express the wonderful life she had lived up to that point and make shocking discoveries about some of the people she had once considered family and friends.

Oliveira is now 63 years old and has been sober for almost 20 years.

Balling is now available on Netflix.