rio de janeiro
AP
—
Criminal organizations have expanded their reach in the Brazilian Amazon over the past year and are now active in nearly half of the region’s municipalities, according to a report released Wednesday by a prominent nonprofit group.
According to the Brazilian Public Safety Forum, the proliferation of these criminal organizations is causing violence in the region where United Nations climate change talks are currently taking place and threatening the conservation of the world’s largest rainforest.
According to the nonprofit group, organized crime groups are currently active in 344 out of 772 municipalities, or about 45%. This is a 32% jump compared to last year’s report, which had 260 participants, and more than double the number from two years ago.
The drug trafficking organization Red Command has more than doubled its presence since 2023. The notorious criminal organization was the target of the deadliest police operation in Rio’s history on October 28, leaving 121 people dead.
The Rio raid has sparked a national debate about organized crime in Brazil, with the country’s lower house on Tuesday night approving a bill proposing stiffer sentences for gang members.
“These criminal groups are trying to diversify and maximize their illegal activities,” David Marquez, one of the report’s authors, told The Associated Press. “In addition to drug trafficking, there is also an increase in extortion and environmental crimes such as illegal logging and mining,” he said.
With the increase in criminal organizations, territorial disputes, weapons and violence are emerging, Marquez said. The group said there were 8,047 murders in the region in 2024, or 27.3 murders per 100,000 residents, 31% higher than the national average.
In addition to Red Command and its main rival First Capital Command, about 17 other criminal organizations operate in the region, including Torren de Aragua in Venezuela, which has been the target of military attacks by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The Red Army Command, based in Rio, has been working with Peruvian and Colombian cartels to control river routes. The drugs flow into strategic ports such as Manaus, Santarem, Barcarena, Macapá and Belém, where Brazil is hosting COP30.
Meanwhile, the São Paulo-based First Capital Command is focusing on the use of clandestine airstrips in remote areas linked to illegal mining, the group said.
The group’s director, Renato Sergio de Lima, said in a statement that fighting organized crime in the Amazon requires focusing on other ways of developing the region other than “predatory exploitation of resources.”
The bill approved by the House on Tuesday would increase sentences for certain crimes if the defendant is also a gang member, such as increasing the recommended sentence for intentional homicide from 6 to 20 years to 20 to 40 years. It would also allow authorities to seize assets even before a final verdict in a case and require gang leaders to serve time in maximum-security federal prisons.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva lamented to X that the law was being weakened by proposed budget cuts to the federal police. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it will likely be amended, but with crime being a top concern for voters, a compromise version is likely to pass Congress in the end.
