“Crime not only controls the sale of drugs, but also dominates territories”: what is behind the most lethal police operation in the history of Brazil

For José Luis Pérez Guadalupe, former Minister of the Interior and professor at the University of the Pacific (UP), organized crime in Brazil has particularities that distance it from the modalities in which groups operate, such as those with the greatest influence in Peru.

The professor, author of the book “The Aragua Train and Organized Crime in Latin America,” maintains that the drug trade is the main factor that conditions the activity of the Comando Vermelho (CV) and other groups such as the Primeiro Comando da Capital, which emerged in Sao Paulo and has a presence in Rio de Janeiro. However, to drug trafficking and other illicit occupations, these groups have been adding control of formal activities and imposing conditions on public and private entities that operate in their territories.

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-Does an operation of the dimensions and scale of the one registered in Rio de Janeiro have a real impact against crime?

I’m going to give two examples, one successful and one not. The same measure of force was applied in the state of Rio Janeiro and Goiás. It must be understood that each state has its own civil police and its military police. In the case of Rio, the federal police were not summoned.

In Goiania, the capital of the state of Goiás, the governor also imposed a heavy-handed policy and his motto was “you are going to end up in the cemetery or in jail” and he stepped on the accelerator with his state police. In that state, local criminal organizations lowered the level (of crimes) and those who were not from the area left. There were results and people recognize it.

Instead, in Rio de Janeiro This has been applied many years ago and it has not worked. It is not that there is a recipe to follow in Brazil to solve this. What happens is that there you have 1,000 communities—they no longer say favela—and it is a different and immense universe, it is a very strong social problem. When I was minister I went to see the work of the peacekeeping police and in Brazil it is mentioned that while it worked crime went down.

The issue is very complex, but to understand it a little we must keep in mind that in Brazil all criminal organizations revolve around the drug business, from the small and local ones to the largest ones such as the Comando Vermelho, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) or the Familia do Norte. They are different from our criminal organizations and others (with a presence in Peru), since even the Aragua Train does not focus on the sale of narcotics.

In Brazil, all criminal territorialization is due to the sale of drugs and in Rio de Janeiro, in addition to the Comando Vermelho and the PCC – originally from Sao Paulo – there are groups such as Terceiro Comando Puro and Amigos dos Amigos.

In 2023, the criminal factions or commandos blocked the city with shootings, burned buses and killed people and there was no scandal and the governor did nothing.

Now we are not only talking about drugs, but about territorial control, these groups dominate everything, it is criminal governance and we mention it in the book we wrote.

“In Brazil all criminal organizations revolve around the drug business”

-Could we be talking about an impersonation of the State by these organizations as happens in several regions of Mexico or has that point not yet been reached?

At the beginning all the theorists of criminal governance talked about the replacement of the State and now no one does, because without a state you do not govern. Now there is talk of collusion with the state, corruption and relationship with the state and officials.

The easiest thing is to say that they replace the state, but it never leaves: there is a governor, a mayor and authorities with whom they negotiate and coordinate. Criminal organizations have advanced and (in Brazil) they no longer only sell drugs, but they dominate a territory.

The vast majority of favelas and communities are located on hills, which they call ‘morros’, which have very specific entrances controlled by criminal groups and you cannot go up or enter these locations so easily. If you control the entrances to a specific territory and sell illegal drugs, you can sell legal, but monopolized, drugs. For example, these factions control the sale of gas, since only they can sell the bottles and now they are also selling water in bottles without allowing anyone else to do so. Even these groups are responsible for the internet service, since they are the ones who grant permission to enter their territory to the companies that offer them a higher percentage of space.

It is not just drugs, it is a total domain, but one that does not lose relationship with the State.

-These Brazilian groups have a strong presence in some countries like Paraguay, for example. How big must the interstate work be to carry out major operations against them?

Organized crime has long been regional and what you say is long overdue. The issue of crime in Brazil basically remains in its own territory except for some coordination in the state of Roraima – bordering Venezuela – with the Aragua Train, or incursions in Colombia and Peru due to the issue of drug trafficking.

However, in the case of Paraguay it is something strong because Paraguay is a large producer of marijuana, which they take to Brazil. Secondly, Paraguay is a large trafficking center for everything and many of the strong organizations in Brazil have connections and have many of their people in that country. That is known.

The regional issue has been known for years and that is what the Peruvian police should also understand. I have been told on good authority, but I am not aware, that for eight years Peru has not had a National Police liaison in Ameripol, the international police cooperation organization of the American continent. I sent the first link when I was minister and it was worked on for two years, but it was discontinued. It is a fact to be confirmed, but they have told me that there is no link. How do you want to work at Ameripol if you don’t send a link?

At UP we have 127 colonels studying a master’s degree in public management, but in addition to the content, which is the same for everyone, we are teaching them a criminology course and in December we are bringing specialists from Colombia, Chile and Brazil to talk about organized crime, since this is clearly a regional problem.

“There is a continental tendency in favor or against this iron fist policy and that will have repercussions in Peru”

-What type of impact can operations like the one in Brazil have in Peru? Can this impact generate movements in local crime or drive demands for a strong hand in the electoral context?

I see three effects of this. The immediate one will be the retaliation of the factions of the Complexo do Alemão and the others in Rio de Janeiro that can follow the Red Command if it reacts. They may give a strong, bloody response and it is something that has already happened before with the Primeiro Comando, which burned police stations. The second point may be the balloon effect, that is, some leaders of the CV temporarily leave the state of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil towards Paraguay or Argentina to hide a little.

A third effect is discursive. Watching the news from Brazil, it is observed that those who have congratulated Governor Castro have been Jair Bolsonaron, Javier Milei, Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele. All right-wing politicians have praised the operation. Who are against? Nicolás Maduro or even Lula da Silva himself, like the entire left.

There you have a continental tendency for or against this heavy-handed policy and that is going to have repercussions in Peru. There are not many specialists on the issue of Brazil here and I believe that no one is going to say much about the issue because they can get ‘burned’, but in general I do not doubt that promoters of more heavy-handed actions like Rafael López Aliaga can take that as a reference. Obviously we have to take it with a grain of salt because each situation is different and we will still see the reaction of the Red Command.

-Have the networks of criminal groups become so complex that we have reached a point of no return and must we assume that we must live with them or are there still means to counteract them?

Giovanni Falconi, Italian judge and prosecutor, had a phrase that we quote at the end of our book: “The Mafia is not invincible, it is a human phenomenon and like all human phenomena, it has a beginning, an evolution and will have an end.” Regional, continental and even global organized crime has undergone a great transformation and talking about cartels like the one in Cali or Medellín is now for the novels, for Netflix. Now they work differently.

There will be evolutions, but criminal groups are going to stay and for a long time, among other things, because states have not had the capacity to react adequately. Gold prices rise and there is illegal mining, drug prices rise and we have drug trafficking: as long as there are illegal economies that support criminal organizations, we will have this for a while, but with the particularities of the case.

Our country is not a drug consumer and that is why there cannot be the type of organization that is seen in Brazilian or Venezuelan groups. In Brazil the central axis is drug trafficking and consumption, but here we do not consume them and there is no war for control of territories for the sale of drugs. They are different contexts in terms of social and criminal phenomenology.