Brazilian Gangs Getting Too Big, Need to Be Tackled Now, Observers Say

‘The impact on the United States I would categorize as indirect, but it is significant,’ a former investigator for the Department of Homeland Security said.

Residents surround the bodies of people killed the day before during a police raid targeting the Comando Vermelho gang in the Complexo da Penha favela of Rio de Janeiro on Oct. 29, 2025. Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo

Police in Rio de Janeiro recently carried out an operation in Alemão and Penha, two neighborhoods—or favelas—reportedly controlled by a huge gang called Comando Vermelho (CV).

The raids triggered gunbattles with the heavily armed gang, which led to the deaths of 121 people, including at least four police officers.

Favelas are poor neighborhoods, often characterized by densely populated and shoddy housing, situated on hillsides in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-biggest city.

On Aug. 28, Brazilian police and tax authorities seized 1.2 billion reais ($220 million) in assets they believe are owned by another of the country’s biggest organized crime groups, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) or First Capital Command, based in São Paulo.

“That is a sizable seizure, but it is only a fraction of PCC’s revenues,” Fergus Hodgson, publisher of the Impunity Observer and author of “The Latin America Red Pill,” told The Epoch Times.

“This is a diversified organization that works with some of the world’s most important terrorist organizations.”

CV and PCC have grown at an alarming rate in recent years, and Brazilian organized crime is reaching the United States.

“You’re going to see money laundering in the United States, and you’re going to see specific drug routes that have an indirect but significant impact on the United States,” said Jim Weber, a former narcotics investigator with the Department of Homeland Security and founder of St. Louis-based StreetWise 360 Consulting.

“It is significant because Brazilian operations influence global drug prices.”

Enormous Profits

Edson Gomes, who runs Submundo Criminal, a social media venture that focuses on organized crime, said today’s Brazilian criminal groups are diversifying beyond drug trafficking. Gomes used a different name for safety reasons.

He told The Epoch Times that gangs such as CV and PPC have been taking on activities that were previously the preserve of milicias—groups of corrupt police officers—such as extortion of shopkeepers and favela residents and the exploitation of water, gas, and internet services.

He pointed out that Pedro de Souza Mesquita, a senior officer with the Brazilian Intelligence Agency, told a parliamentary committee on Nov. 6 that CV is involved in all existing conflicts between criminal factions in Brazil.

“This demonstrates that groups like CV are becoming large, exploiting various criminal modalities, and inserting themselves into various layers of society,” Gomes said.

From 2008 onward, Pacifying Police Units (Unidades de Policía Pacificadora) have been sent into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in an effort to reclaim them from the gangs.

But Mesquita said the efforts have had an unintended consequence, as they have led to CV bosses moving to other parts of the country and thus increasing the group’s national reach.

Hodgson said: “Gangs such as Comando Vermelho are aggressive, sophisticated, and well-equipped.

“That is because they work in lucrative black market sectors and have strong incentives to protect their turf.”

Active in Tri-Border Area

Hodgson said gangs such as PCC have found numerous ways to profit, including through smuggling in the Tri-Border Area near Brazil’s frontiers with Argentina and Paraguay.

In May this year, the U.S. State Department said it was seeking information “leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms” of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group, specifically in the Tri-Border Area.

PCC was probably responsible for an April 2017 heist in the city of Ciudad del Este in the Tri-Border Area, which involved up to 80 heavily armed robbers and led to a loss of up to $40 million, then-Paraguayan Interior Minister Lorenzo Lezcano told ABC.

Weber said that although the gangs are not necessarily too big to bring down, they are on “an upward trajectory.”

He said they appeared to be seeking to emulate the behavior of Mexican drug cartels such as Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, which were designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department in February.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s latest cocaine report, published in July, states, “The predominant geographic source of Brazilian cocaine was Peru, followed by Bolivia.”

Weber said both CV and PCC seem to be “incredibly powerful organizations,” but only in specific parts of Brazil.

He said Brazilians need to deal with them now before they get “out of control.”

“Look at Pablo Escobar,” Weber said. “He started out somewhat small, and then grew through just increasing the criminal activity, increasing the networking. That individual and his organization grew and grew and it wasn’t effectively addressed by law enforcement.”

Law enforcement, particularly the police’s elite Battalion of Special Police Operations, is “trying to get a grasp on it so it doesn’t spread like wildfire throughout Brazil,” he said.

Gomes said the gangs impose terror on the favelas, often disguised by acts of apparent generosity such as giving toys to children on Children’s Day (Oct. 12) and other holidays.

“Recently, a friend informed me that in a favela where he lives in Rio de Janeiro, there was a war between gangs,” Gomes said.

“He said he was afraid to arrive home late from work because the gangs were watching everyone’s movements and even asked to search residents’ cellphones to check if any of them were in collusion with their rivals.

“Many residents are coerced into leaving their doors open so that the criminals can hide on days of police operations.”

High-Profile Airport Assassination

In November 2024, 38-year-old businessman Antonio Vinicius Lopes Gritzbach was assassinated outside the international airport in Brazil’s biggest city, São Paulo.

It has since emerged that Gritzbach was a PCC member who had been cooperating with Brazilian law enforcement and had provided information about their money laundering operations and also implicated several corrupt police officers.

“Gritzbach had a target on his back for several years and knew it, but he didn’t care and continued to live his life normally,” Gomes said.

“This cost him dearly, and he paid with his life.”

He said several police officers who had been arrested for involvement in the case led “double lives” and had contact with both Gritzbach and his tormentors.

Gomes said the complicity of corrupt police officers could be one of the reasons factions such as PCC have grown so much in recent years.

“If anything, this case has brought the police–criminal association out of the shadows, after it was already widely assumed,” Hodgson said of the Gritzbach shooting.

Brazil’s Globo news outlet reported in March that among those indicted in connection with Gritzbach’s murder were Denis Antonio Martins, a corporal in the military police; Fernando Genauro, a police lieutenant; and Ruan Silva Rodrigues, a military police officer.

There is no hard evidence of widespread corruption in Brazil’s government or police forces, according to Weber.

But he said: “Let’s be real, that’s the way these organizations operate.

“They seek individuals in law enforcement within that community that can benefit their criminal activity. Oftentimes, law enforcement is paid low, these organizations are very wealthy, and they can provide financial incentive to sources.”

CV, PCC, and two other organized crime groups—Terceiro Comando and Amigos dos Amigos—have deep roots in Brazil.

Founded by Political Prisoners

In the 1970s, CV was founded as Falange Vermelha by left-wing political prisoners during Brazil’s military dictatorship.

But one of its founders, Eduino Eustaquio de Araujo, known as Dudu da Rocinha, transformed it into a purely criminal organization long before he was murdered in a prison cell in 2013.

“It has morphed into a massive, very influential organization, and not just in Brazil,” Weber said. “It has ties throughout the world.”

PCC was founded in the 1990s by Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, known as Marcola and Playboy.

Now 57, he is serving a 232-year sentence in a maximum-security prison for homicide, drug trafficking, and robbery but is said to retain control of the gang on the outside.

His second-in-command, Gilberto Aparecido dos Santos, known as Fuminho, was arrested in Mozambique in April 2020 and extradited to Brazil.

Gomes said there are an estimated 30,000 members in PCC, but that if associates are included, the number could be triple that.

Politicians Struggle to Combat Crime

Gomes said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s views on crime differ significantly from those of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, who supported aggressive police operations and the fight against drug trafficking.

“Lula has a position that is more about respecting human rights, intelligent policing without confrontation,” Gomes said.

(Left) Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, in this file photo. (Right) Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil on Oct. 30, 2022. Wagner Meier, Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images

“Crime takes advantage of this, even inserting itself into the local political scene to maintain a certain control. There are several cases of campaign financing and candidates heavily involved with factions.”

Brazil’s Senate has launched a commission of inquiry into organized crime, but Gomes said Brazilians do not “have high expectations for it.”

The next presidential election in Brazil will be held in October 2026, but Bolsonaro will not be a candidate. He was jailed for 27 years in September after being accused of instigating a coup after the 2022 election. His trial was described as a “witch hunt” by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“These problems, especially the infiltration of police forces, run deeper than one presidential administration,” Hodgson said. “Assuming one or two simple policies could unravel organized crime would be foolish.”

He said Lula reduced the harshness of sentencing in drug cases and Bolsonaro made gun ownership easier.

“Most of Bolsonaro’s changes were reversed when Lula got back into power,” Hodgson said. “While the two presidents have somewhat different strategies towards organized crime, Brazil has a peculiar statist culture that has prevented deeper liberalization that would reduce gang power.”