capanga

plural capangas

1. A thug or bodyguard in Brazil.

   Feared by the workers, the capangas intimidate laborers and driver off small farmers with bulldozers.

   2010, Nikolas Kozloff, No Rain in the Amazon, page 163

   2 more examples

   She saw six armed riders: she could tell, by the way they were dressed and by the clearly visible brand of the same hacienda on the flanks of all their horses, that they were capangas and not cangaceiros or Rural Police.

   1984, Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Helen R. Lane, The War of the End of the World, Folio Society, published 2012, page 208

   He had never actually killed a man, though the peasants spoke of at least ten sent to their graves by Joazinho, a reputation the capanga did nothing to discourage.

   1986, Errol Lincoln Uys, Brazil, page 730