Abstract
This article centers its approach in the place of secrecy for the federal police investigation of crimes associated with illegal drugs in a metropolis of Brazil. Part of this task takes the name of intelligence work: secret activities that aim at discovering delictive networks. Through an ethnographic approach, I will connect the native terms, which evoke secret for the work of the police, with the concept of information (its relevance for the police and judiciary procedures) and with the value of confidence in interpersonal relationships. The inquiry shows how the state is supported by and recreates networks of provisory associations and interests that, from the native theories, question the frontiers attributed by the political theories. Analyzing the secret as “form” of relation and as pattern of change and exchange allows to understand the importance of what is produced as such, leaving the “content” that it keeps or hides in a place of secondary significance.
Key words:
secret; police investigation; ethnography; drug trafficking