Favela is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term, which means slum or ghetto, was first used in the Slum of Providência in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had lived under the favela trees in Bahia and had nowhere to live following the Canudos War. Some of the last settlements were called bairros africanos. Over the years, many former enslaved Africans moved in. Even before the first favela came into being, poor citizens were pushed away from the city and forced to live in the far suburbs.
Jacarezinho is a favela in Rio de Janeiro, with more than 60,300 residents living in an area of 40 hectares. It is located in the North Zone of the city, and borders the neighborhoods of Jacaré, Méier, Engenho Novo and Triagem. It is the third-largest favela in Rio de Janeiro, behind Rocinha and Complexo do Alemão. The favela expanded as the city industrialized, and it became the biggest favela in Rio de Janeiro by the mid-20th century, with a population of 23,000 in 1960. The crucial element in its growth was the industrial boom in the nearby Méier district after World War II, according to the historian Julio Cesar Pino, author of a book about the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.
Comando Vermelho, also known as CV, is a Brazilian criminal organization engaged primarily in drug trafficking, arms trafficking, protection racketeering, kidnapping-for-ransom, hijacking of armored trucks, loansharking, irregular warfare, narco-terrorism, and turf wars against rival criminal organizations, such as Primeiro Comando da Capital and Terceiro Comando Puro. The gang formed in 1979 out of a prison alliance between common criminals and leftist guerrillas who were imprisoned together at Cândido Mendes, a maximum-security prison on the island of Ilha Grande. The prisoners formed the alliance to protect themselves from prison violence and guard-inflicted brutality; as the group coalesced, the common criminals were infused with leftist social justice ideals by the guerrillas. In 1979, prison officials labeled the alliance "Comando Vermelho", a name which the prisoners eventually co-opted as their own. In the 1980s, the gang expanded beyond Ilha Grande into other prisons and the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and became involved in the rapidly growing cocaine industry. Meanwhile, Brazil's shift towards democracy and the eventual end of the military dictatorship in 1985 allowed the leftist guerrillas to re-enter society; thus, the CV largely abandoned its left-wing ideology.
Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais (BOPE) or BOPE is the police tactical unit and gendarmerie of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State (PMERJ) in Brazil. Due to the nature of crime in favelas, BOPE units utilize equipment deemed more powerful than traditional civilian law enforcement, and have extensive experience in urban warfare as well as progression in confined and restricted environments.
Tim Lopes was a Brazilian investigative journalist and producer for the Brazilian television network Rede Globo. In 2002, the media reported him missing while working undercover on a story in one of Rio's favelas. It was later learned that Lopes had been accosted by drug traffickers who controlled the area, was kidnapped, driven to the top of a neighboring favela in the trunk of a car, tied to a tree and subjected to a mock trial, tortured by having his hands, arms, and legs severed with a sword while still alive, and then had his body placed within tires, covered in gasoline and set on fire—a practice that traffickers have dubbed micro-ondas.
Complexo do Alemão is a group of favelas in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Crime in Brazil involves an elevated incidence of violent and non-violent crimes. Brazil's homicide rate was 21.26 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). In absolute terms, Brazil has the highest number of intentional homicides in the world with 57,358 in 2018, but adjusted for population, Brazil is in 18th place. In recent years, the homicide rate in Brazil has begun to decline. The homicide rate was 20.89 per 100,000 in 2019 with 43,073 killings, down from 30.59 per 100,000 with 63.788 killings in 2017. Some states had lower than a 10.0 homicide rate such as São Paulo with 8.4 and Santa Catarina 9.1 per 100.000.
Vidigal is a neighborhood and a favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Military Police of Rio de Janeiro State (PMERJ) like other military polices in Brazil is a reserve and ancillary force of the Brazilian Army, and part of the System of Public Security and Brazilian Social Protection. Its members are called "state military" personnel.
The Pacifying Police Unit, abbreviated UPP, is a law enforcement and social services program pioneered in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which aims to reclaim territories, most commonly favelas, controlled by gangs of drug dealers. The program was created and implemented by State Public Security Secretary José Mariano Beltrame, with the backing of Rio Governor Sérgio Cabral. The stated goal of Rio's government is to install 40 UPPs by 2014. By May 2013, 231 favelas had come under the UPP umbrella. The UPP program scored initial success expelling gangs, and won broad praise. But the expensive initiative expanded too far, too fast into dozens of favelas as state finances cratered, causing a devastating backslide that enabled gangs to recover some of their lost grip.
In November 2010, there was a major security crisis in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro and some of its neighboring cities. The city's criminal drug trafficking factions initiated a series of attacks in response to the government placing permanent police forces into Rio's slums.
Gelson Domingos da Silva, a Brazilian camera operator for the Rede Bandeirantes TV network, died while covering a drug bust in Rio de Janeiro as the government of Brazil prepared for its hosting of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Domingos was the first Brazilian journalist to die in this type of crime setting in Brazil.
On July 14, 2013, Amarildo de Souza, a 43-year-old bricklayer from the Rocinha favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was called in for questioning by Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) officers on his way home from the market. Believed to be connected to drug trafficking activity in the favela despite having no prior involvement in illegal activity, de Souza was brought in for questioning during Operation Armed Peace, during which roughly 300 officers from Rocinha's UPP force flooded the favela in order to arrest drug traffickers. It was during this two-day long raid that de Souza was brought to the police station and never seen again.
Douglas Donato Pereira, also known as Dina Terror, was a Brazilian drug lord, who was killed in a shootout by Brazilian Police.
Drugs and Democracy in Rio de Janeiro: Trafficking, Social Networks, and Public Security is a book by Enrique Desmond Arias published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2006. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to understand public security, government operations, and drug related operations in Rio de Janeiro's favelas. Enrique Desmond Arias travels to Brazil to investigate the main reasons for a dramatic surge in crime, and he is also interested in figuring out what can be done.
Brazilian militias, mainly in Rio de Janeiro, and some other cities of Brazil, are illegal mafia-like paramilitary groups made up of current and former police officers as well as Military Firefighters Corps officers, criminals, politicians, and military officers, operating also as a regular mafia by trade extortion and political influence.
Elias Pereira da Silva, also known as Elias Maluco, was one of Rio de Janeiro's most powerful drug traffickers. Maluco, a member of the criminal faction Comando Vermelho, commanded drug trafficking in thirty slums near Complexo do Alemão and Penha, Brazil. He was accused of killing over sixty people.
The Vila Cruzeiro shootout took place on 24 May 2022 in the favela of the same name in Rio de Janeiro, during a joint operation by the Special Police Operations Battalion (BOPE), the Federal Police and the Federal Highway Police that resulted in at least 26 people killed by gunshots or cutting objects. It was the second most lethal police operation in the city of Rio de Janeiro, second only to the Chacina do Jacarezinho, which occurred a year earlier.
An ongoing conflict between Brazilian militias, organized criminal groups Comando Vermelho, Amigos dos Amigos, Terceiro Comando Puro and the Brazilian state, has taken place primarily in Rio de Janeiro since 2006.
On August 27, 2022, Bruno Vanzan Nunes was killed when the Federal Highway Police agent responded to a robbery, and was shot on Transolímpica Avenue. Police forces in Rio de Janeiro mobilized to look for the criminals, but PRF agents killed Lorenzo Dias Palhinhas, 14 years old, in Complexo do Chapadão.
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