By Carlos Meneses
Belém, Brazil (EFE).- From the bustling streets of Belém to the depths of the Amazon rainforest, organized crime is spreading fast across northern Brazil, driven by the notorious Red Command (Comando Vermelho, or CV). Indigenous leader Val Munduruku has witnessed the advance firsthand.
In Belém, the host city of the upcoming UN Climate Summit (COP30), the gang’s red initials, CV, are spray-painted across light poles in poor neighborhoods such as Barreiro.
Just five kilometers (approximately 3.1 miles) away, in the favela of Vila da Barca, built on stilts over water, the group’s influence is also visible.
“Unfortunately, they’ve entered our territory, through illegal mining, drugs, weapons, even alcohol, whose cases have grown a lot,” said Val, president of the Suraras Women’s Association of the Tapajós, speaking to EFE.
Crime expands from the prisons of Rio to the Forests of Pará
Founded in the 1970s inside a Rio de Janeiro prison, the Red Command has long controlled drug and arms trafficking in Brazil’s cities.
In recent years, it has seized control of the “Solimões Route,” a major drug corridor connecting the Brazil–Colombia–Peru border to ports in northern Brazil.
Last week, police killed between 121 and 132 suspected gang members in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas controlled by the CV, according to multiple reports.
But the group’s reach extends far beyond the cities. Val traveled to Belém from Jacareacanga, a municipality bordering the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, which covers 2.4 million hectares (5.9 million acres) and is home to more than 9,000 Indigenous people.
The area is among the three most invaded by illegal gold mining, according to Greenpeace.
“Jacareacanga is being taken over,” Val warned. “Our youth are the most vulnerable. When these things arrive, the young people get lost.”
The Red Command’s ‘Amazonian empire’
The CV strengthened its presence in the world’s largest tropical forest after a bloody war with rival gang Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC).
The feud erupted in 2017, when massacres inside Brazilian prisons left hundreds dead. The CV later allied with the Família do Norte, a local criminal faction, before turning on it and nearly wiping it out.
“Around 40 municipalities in Pará are now under the control of criminal groups,” said Aiala Colares, a researcher at the State University of Pará (UEPA).
According to David Marques, a project coordinator at Brazil’s Public Security Forum, the Red Command operates in 60 of the 62 municipalities in the neighboring state of Amazonas.
“The Amazon route is attractive for organized crime because it’s hard to monitor and allows diversification through illegal activities like mining,” Marques explained. “It’s a serious challenge for sustainable development in one of Brazil’s poorest regions.”
Extortion, illegal services, and a call for new strategies
In the territories it controls, the Red Command imposes what locals call a “crime tax.” Businesses are extorted, while the gang monopolizes services like cooking gas, public transport, and pirated internet or cable TV.
Colares warned that the government’s current approach is not working.
“We need to rethink our strategies,” he said. “These groups reorganize quickly after any police operation. Military action and prison alone aren’t enough.”
He also criticized proposals to classify the Red Command and PCC as terrorist organizations, recently adopted in Paraguay, arguing that it only serves United States interests and further fuels the drug trade. EFE
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