Brazil’s Amazon sees surge in violence as gangs expand presence: Report

Brazil’s Amazon has seen an increase in violence as criminal gangs expand their presence in over a third of the municipalities in the country’s rainforest region, according to a report by the Brazilian Public Security Forum.

The report, published on Wednesday, highlights the growing dominance of two powerful gangs – Red Command and First Capital Command (PCC) – in one of the world’s most critical ecosystems.

According to the report, gangs were present this year in 260 of 772 municipalities in the region against 178 in 2023.

The presence of “mafia-like” organizations “greatly aggravates the situation in the legal Amazon, which is now seen as a very strategic area for transnational human trafficking, with the circulation of various illegal goods,” the report said.

The legal Amazon is an area of ​​nine states in Brazil that is home to the largest hydrographic basin in the world.

A growing stronghold

According to Renato Sérgio de Lima, president of the Brazilian Public Security Forum, of the 260 municipalities where organized crime groups are present, Red Command fully controls half, up from a quarter last year.

Lima told The Associated Press that Red Command expanded to cities in Brazil’s northern region after the PCC took control of the drug-trafficking route via Ponta Pora, a municipality on the border with Paraguay in the mid-west region.

According to the third edition of the report, titled “Maps of Violence in the Amazon,” these monopolies in criminal activity have also contributed to a 6.2 percent reduction in violent deaths across the region from 2021 to 2023 as rival gang conflicts decline.

But the violence has spilled over into rural areas and once peaceful cities, turning them into hotspots of lawlessness.

“The internalization of violence into rural and forest areas has turned small, quiet municipalities into some of the most violent in the country,” the report said.

A complex crisis

The report comes after the brutal killings in 2022 of indigenous rights lawyer Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips, which epitomized the grim reality of increased violence.

Their murders, allegedly orchestrated by a Colombian fishmonger in defiance of Pereira’s efforts and enforcement of environmental laws in the region, exposed the deadly intersections between organized crime, illegal mining and deforestation.

Pereira and Phillips were traveling along the Itaquai River near the entrance to the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory, which borders Peru and Colombia, when they were attacked. Their bodies were dismembered, burned and buried.

Former federal police detective Alexandre Saraiva, who has first-hand experience investigating crime in the Amazon and knew both Phillips and Pereira, claims that criminal expansion has accelerated alongside a boom in illegal mining.

“There is no shadow of a doubt”, he tells AP.

He links this growth to illegal mining policies under former President Jair Bolsonarowho openly encouraged such practices. Although current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has curbed deforestation, his administration has struggled to dismantle entrenched drug gangs.

“Today maybe do right in the Amazon,” Saraiva, who wrote the book Jungle: Loggers, Miners and Corruption in a Lawless Amazontold the AP.

However, he warned that some Brazilian lawmakers and local politicians were also responsible for the situation, accusing them of receiving funds from criminal groups in exchange for protection.

Crashes and challenges

On Wednesday, Brazil’s federal police launched an operation targeting illegal gold smuggling linked to indigenous lands, including the Munduruku territory. According to a statement, authorities arrested nine suspects in six states and seized assets worth $100 million. Over the past year, these criminal groups have allegedly smuggled a ton of gold while recruiting couriers on commercial flights.

While this crackdown demonstrates the state’s potential to act, Lima emphasized the need for broader, coordinated policies to address the root causes of crime and exploitation.

“There is no magic wand that will solve all the problems,” he said.

This article includes reporting from the Associated Press.