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This is a list of criminal gangs in Brazil, of Brazilian or foreign origin.
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This is a list of criminal gangs in Brazil, of Brazilian or foreign origin.
Amigos dos Amigos (Friends of Friends) – operates in Rio de Janeiro. It began in 1998 when a member of § Red Command was expelled from the organization for ordering the murder of another member. The gang's main rivals are Red Command and § Pure Third Command. ADA controls many drug selling points in the North and West zones. [1]
Comando Vermelho (Red Command) – engaged primarily in drug trafficking, arms trafficking, protection rackets, kidnapping-for-ransom, carjacking of armored trucks, loansharking, irregular warfare, narcoterrorism, [2] and turf wars against rival criminal organizations, such as § First Capital Command and § Terceiro Comando Puro . [3] [4]
Crime Syndicate of Rio Grande do Norte [ pt ] (RN; SDC; 18.14) – the largest criminal organization operating within the prisons and drug trafficking strongholds of Rio Grande do Norte state. Like other organizations in the North and Northeast Region of the country, it was created in reaction to the control exercised by the § First Capital Command (PCC) over drug trafficking activities. [5] [6]
Escritório do Crime [ pt; fr; es ] (Crime Office) – a criminal militia of gunmen and elite killers that operates in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro [ pt ] which grew out of land grabs and illegal real estate operations in construction, sale, and illegal rentals. [7] [8] Their chief activity is murder for hire. [8] The group is composed of military police and former police.
Família do Norte (Northern Family) – a criminal faction that occupies northern Brazil and some regions in Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. [9]
First Capital Command (First Capital Command ) – Latin America's largest drug gang, and one of the world's largest with 40,000 members and 60,000 "contractors", with links to other South American and European countries, including ties to § 'Ndrangheta in Italy, and expanding into West Africa. [10]
Guardiões do Estado (Guardians of the State; GDE) – a Brazilian criminal gang operating in the state of Ceará. It is the 4th largest gang in Brazil and is made up mostly of teenagers and young adults. [11]
'Ndrangheta – an Italian crime gang dating to the 19th century, operating in Brazil since the 1970s, and allied with § First Capital Command since the 2010s for supplying cocaine to the European market. [12]
Terceiro Comando (Third Command) – founded in the early 1980s as a break-away faction of the § Red Command, Terceiro Comando dominated drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro, and engaged in bank robbery and drug-trafficking. [13]
Terceiro Comando Puro (Pure Third Command) – a Rio de Janeiro group that split off from § Terceiro Comando in 2002 due to disputes about TC's affiliations with the § Amigos dos Amigos gang. TC weakened while TCP strengthened and eventually absorbed its parent group's members. Primarily involved with drug trafficking. [14]
Triad – a Chinese mafia group operating worldwide, including in Brazil. In São Paulo, they run protection money rackets, with shopkeepers in central Sao Paulo threatened with kidnapping and assassination if they fail to comply. They also have a presence in Recife and Pernambuco. [15] [16] [17]
A drug cartel is a criminal organization composed of independent drug lords who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade. Drug cartels form with the purpose of controlling the supply of the illegal drug trade and maintaining prices at a high level. The formations of drug cartels are common in Latin American countries. Rivalries between multiple drug cartels cause them to wage turf wars against each other.
The Primeiro Comando da Capital is a Brazilian organized crime syndicate. According to a 2023 The Economist report, the PCC is Latin America's biggest drug gang, with a membership of 40,000 lifetime members plus 60,000 "contractors". Its name refers to the São Paulo state capital, the city of São Paulo.
In Brazil, the Federal Constitution establishes eight law enforcement institutions - seven titulars and one auxiliar. The titular institutions are: the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police, the Federal Railroad Police, the Federal Penal Police, the State Military Police and Fire Brigade, the State Civil Police and the State Penal Police. Of these, the first four are affiliated to federal authorities and the latter three are subordinated to state governments. These public safety institutions are part of the Executive branch of either federal or state government. Apart from these eight institutions, there are others which affiliate to municipal authorities: the Municipal Guards. According to Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Supreme Federal Court, "...the Municipal Guards are inserted in public safety as the auxiliary and related body of public security force..." Federal law 13,022 gave them de facto and de jure police attributions.
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.
Amigos dos Amigos is a criminal organization that operates in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. It was started up in 1998 when a member of Comando Vermelho was expelled from the organization for ordering the murder of another member. The gang's main rivals are Comando Vermelho and Terceiro Comando Puro. ADA controls many drug selling points in the North and West zones.
The 2006 São Paulo violence outbreak began on the night of May 12, 2006 in São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America. It was among the worst outbreaks of violence in recorded Brazilian history and was directed against security forces and a few civilian targets. By May 14 the attacks had spread to other Brazilian states including Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul, Minas Gerais and Bahia.
Proibidão, which literally translates to "strongly prohibited", is a subgenre of funk carioca music originating from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro where it began in the early 1990s as a parallel phenomenon to the growth of drug gangs in the many slums of the city. The drug gangs sponsored DJs and baile funks in the favelas they controlled to spread respect and love for their gang as well as hate to the other gangs. The music that resulted is proibidão.
Crime rates in Portugal are generally low, and most crimes are non-violent. Portugal's security and peace indicators compare favourably to those of other countries; According to the Institute for Economics and Peace's 2022 Global Peace Index report, Portugal ranks as the 6th most peaceful country in the world.
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). Brazil has one of the highest number of intentional homicides in the world with 57,358 in 2018. 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.
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.
Terceiro Comando was a Brazilian criminal organization engaged in drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro. It was founded in the early 1980s and is a break-away faction of the Comando Vermelho.
Tres Fronteras is the Spanish name for an area of the Amazon rainforest in the Upper Amazon region of South America. It includes, and is named for, the tripoint where the borders of Brazil, Peru, and Colombia meet. The upper Amazon River flows through the area.
Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho, also known as Marcola, is a Brazilian drug lord and the current leader of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), the largest Brazilian criminal organization and prison gang according to a 2012 Brazilian Government report; it is based in the state of São Paulo. Marcola is currently serving 234 years in prison. With a net worth of over US$ 20 million, Marcola is considered to be one of the most wanted drug traffickers in Brazil and in all of Latin America.
The 2017 Brazil prison riots were a confrontation between two criminal organizations, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV), and their allies within prisons and peripheries of Brazilian cities. Its emergence is linked to the methods of the PCC to conquer new territories for drug trafficking, which involve the collection of insurance and economic centralization and whose rigid pseudo-state organization finds strong resistance from regional criminal organizations, with predominantly decentralized organization.
Events in the year 2019 in Brazil.
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 Familia do Norte is a criminal faction that occupies northern Brazil and some regions in other countries such as: Colombia, Peru and Venezuela. It is considered the 3rd largest faction in Brazil, and the largest in the state of Amazonas, in addition to not having good relations with other Brazilian factions, having already entered into several faction wars.
The Guardians of the State, or the acronym GDE, is a Brazilian criminal faction. It operates in the state of Ceará.
The armed conflict for control of the favelas in Greater Rio de Janeiro or simply Civil conflict for control of the favelas is an ongoing conflict between Brazilian militias, organized criminal groups Comando Vermelho, Amigos dos Amigos, Terceiro Comando Puro and the Brazilian state.
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