Organized crime has spread across Brazilian territory over the past two decades, infiltrating public power structures and moving to take over legal markets, authorities and experts say about the current landscape of crime in Brazil.
There are 88 criminal organizations operating in the country, according to data from the National Secretariat for Penal Policies (Senappen). Most of these groups, 72, operate only in their home states. But 14 have regional reach. And two criminal organizations exert influence beyond Brazil’s borders and are considered “transnational”: Red Command (Comando Vermelho or CV) and First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital or PCC).
These two factions have grown domestically and spread throughout Brazil. They have both forged alliances with each other and with other criminal groups, and engaged in clashes between themselves. These movements have shaped the country’s crime indicators.
In 2017, Brazil reached a historic record for lethality, with more than 65,000 murders recorded—equivalent to 31.6 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants—according to the Atlas of Violence, produced by the Institute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA) and the Brazilian Public Security Forum (FBSP). In experts’ view, the spike in lethality was driven by the war between the PCC and the CV.
After that year, which was marked by violent prison riots, homicides in the country declined gradually, reaching 21.2 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants in 2023—the most recent Atlas of Violence data—totaling 45,747 murders. Regardless of the policies adopted to tackle crime, this decline did not result from a weakening of the factions but rather from agreements and restructurings among the criminal groups themselves, experts say.
According to the Atlas of Violence, Brazil is experiencing a process of decentralization of lethal violence, with criminal dynamics moving inland largely due to the advance of factions into medium-sized and small cities. The survey shows that while municipalities with more than 500,000 inhabitants had an average homicide rate of 23.6 per 100,000, cities with between 100,000 and 500,000 inhabitants recorded a rate of 24.2. In municipalities with up to 100,000 inhabitants, the rate stood at 20.
Daniel Hirata, coordinator of the Group for the Study of New Illegalisms at Fluminense Federal University (GENI/UFF), says this is due to a phenomenon of “factionalization” in several Brazilian states. “This involves alliances built with factions from the Southeast and factions present in other states, and it has produced very evident impacts. We see this phenomenon both in the North and in the Northeast,” Hirata says.
The two main factions emerged in the Southeast. The PCC originated in São Paulo in the early 1990s, while the CV began in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1970s. Now, both groups have broad bases across the country.
Hirata continues: “Red Command is more strongly positioned in the North and Northeast. The PCC is in the Central Arc and the Southeast. The PCC also has a much greater capacity to operate in transnational trafficking than Red Command.”
This kind of interchange stemming from criminal alliances and the expansion of factions was exposed in a mega-operation carried out in Rio de Janeiro in late October, in which 113 people were arrested and 122 died, including five police officers, in the Penha and Alemão complexes in the city’s North Zone. Rio’s Civil Police said that 29 of those arrested and 62 of those killed identified by the force as criminals were from other states.
The police operation, the deadliest in Brazilian history, targeted Red Command. The Civil Police investigation found that members of the group brokered the movement of criminals from other federative units to Rio. For the state government’s top officials, the area where the incursion took place has become the faction’s headquarters, whose operations in the state exemplify what is happening across the rest of the country—especially its expansionist project.
The investigation that underpinned the operation showed the CV’s interest in expanding territorial control into areas currently dominated by militias and other factions in Rio, mostly in the West and Southwest zones of the state capital.
“When we analyze the behavior of criminal groups in the country, we see that each operates according to its own logic of expansion,” says prosecutor Fabio Corrêa, coordinator of the Special Task Force on Public Security at the Rio State Public Prosecutor’s Office (GAESP/MPRJ). Militia is a common term in Brazil for gangs.
“The militia advances by ‘phagocytosing’ territory, extorting and absorbing spaces, services and legal and illegal markets, always anchored in the idea of monopoly and the provision of protection. Drug trafficking factions, by contrast, are structured with greater national bases, adopting a broader model of expansion for their illicit enterprises. These groups also maintain, in many contexts, a logic of conflict; whether in disputes with rivals or in their relationship with security forces, which directly affects daily life in communities,” Corrêa continues.
The prosecutor adds: “This dynamic reveals a constantly changing crime economy, in which different groups compete for markets, resources and social control, profoundly affecting the population’s lives.” Even among factions, there are differences between the PCC and the CV, as detailed by Samira Bueno, executive director of the Brazilian Public Security Forum, a think tank.
“The PCC has a pyramidal, hierarchical structure with very clearly defined rules. Red Command operates more like a franchise, with greater autonomy than the São Paulo-based group to act in the states. As the CV structures itself in other states, it gains more freedom to operate in other businesses and explore other chains. For example, in Mato Grosso, the CV exploits illegal mining,” Bueno says.
According to Rio’s public security secretary, Victor dos Santos, the exploitation of new businesses, especially legal markets, is what gives these groups the financial sustainability to exist. Whereas factions once relied on drug trafficking revenues, their income is now guaranteed by essential services monopolized in communities. In Rio state, this can be seen in service provision, including internet, electricity, gas, alternative transportation, construction, ice, and even bread.
“If we take the example of the Penha and Alemão complexes, together they are equivalent to two Copacabanas of complete urban disorder, which makes them a very favorable environment for crime. About 280,000 people live there. How many of those are drug users? A very small percentage. But how many need the internet? Almost everyone. Even on a very conservative calculation, if 140,000 people pay a basic internet plan of R$100, that’s R$14 million a month. That’s a lot of money. And the default rate is extremely low. Who is going to owe money to drug traffickers or militias?” Santos says.
“It is this financial capacity that allows them to buy assault rifles, carry out extortion, have the capacity to corrupt and even influence an election,” the secretary adds.
This electoral influence became explicit with the case of Rio state lawmaker Thiego Santos (Brazilian Democratic Movement, MDB), known as TH Joias, who was arrested by the Federal Police in September for involvement with Comando Vermelho and transferred Tuesday to a federal prison. Among the crimes he is accused of are brokering the purchase and sale of assault rifles and anti-drone equipment, using his office to favor the criminal organization and appointing others linked to the faction to his office at the Rio State Legislative Assembly (ALERJ).
The case also led to the arrest of the state assembly president, Rodrigo Bacellar (Brazil Union), now removed from office, and appellate judge Macário Júdice Neto of the Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region (TRF-2); both are accused of leaking information about the operation against Joias.
Bacellar was arrested in early December and released seven days later, when ALERJ revoked the detention. Júdice Neto was detained on Tuesday (16). The rapporteur of the inquiry at the Supreme Court, Justice Alexandre de Moraes, said the episode shows the “political infiltration” of organized crime. Such infiltration is also present in security agencies. Even the investigation that supported the mega-operation in Rio showed illicit involvement by agents with CV members. In the prosecutor’s complaint, a police officer exchanges WhatsApp messages with one of the faction’s leaders in the Penha complex to negotiate the recovery of a stolen car.
In the exchange, the officer sends a photo of the vehicle and writes: “All good. I need to recover it. It’s the boss’s car. This one I have to sort out.”
Speaking to Valor, National Secretary for Penal Policies André Garcia says corruption among agents is an “ongoing problem.” “It’s a fact of reality; there’s no denying it. It’s a challenge because the penetration of organized crime implies the compromising of some structures. We need to confront this.”
“It’s an incessant effort. Non-republican [corrupt] practices by prison officers have compromised [security systems]. In most states this is a problem, but it’s not something that can’t be solved with determination, authority, planning and by strengthening oversight structures so the work gets done,” Garcia adds, declining to say where the problem is more or less intense.
“We don’t usually indicate the states where the problem is greater or smaller, because it exists across the entire country. But in one state or another, in a given measure, there is a higher proportion.”
Retired Federal Police officer and former Interpol coordinator in Brazil Jorge Pontes uses a clear analogy to assess the country’s crime scenario: “Crime is liquid; it spills and spreads, seeking paths where it can move and grow.”
Because of this characteristic, Pontes argues, criminal organizations are able to expand across the territory and infiltrate spheres of power. For the same reason, to confront them the state needs to act in an integrated manner and on multiple fronts, as Valor reported in the first story of this series on Monday (15).
Integration, the retired officer says, should not occur only between state and federal security forces. It must also include agencies that do not directly combat crime, such as inspectors, and be embedded in the design of public policies.
“To confront this crime epidemic, public policy design must ensure policies do not benefit criminality. Crime prevention should be integrated into all policies, not just public security. For example, control and traceability systems need to be restored to make life harder for tax evaders, counterfeiters and smugglers. And it is also necessary to anticipate crime’s reactions to new policies, as in the case where the Shootdown Law led criminals to use river routes in the country,” Pontes adds, referring to the 1998 law that authorized the destruction of aircraft suspected of illicit activities while in flight after invading Brazilian airspace.
