Comando Vermelho

Origins (1964-1979)

The exact year that the Comando Vermelho was founded is officially 1979, stemming from a prison alliance between leftist guerrillas and common criminals housed together during the 1970s by Brazil’s military dictatorship at Cândido Mendes, a maximum security Brazilian prison.[14][15][4]

Soon after their regime began in 1964, Brazil’s military dictatorship faced a persistent challenge from leftist guerrilla rebels, made up largely of “middle-class intellectuals.” In hopes of delegitimizing the rebels, in the early 1970s the Brazilian government began placing those they captured in prison alongside common criminals. One such prison, Candido Mendes, located on Ilha Grande, housed a mix of violent criminals and guerrillas in its notoriously brutal “Block B,” or “The Pit.”[16][14] Inmates there were subject to frequent abuse at the hands of both their peers and the guards. The inmates banded together for mutual protection, shielding themselves from guard beatings and establishing a code of conduct for prisoners. Additionally, the guerrillas began to “educate” the common criminals with ideas about resistance, revolution, and social justice.[4] As the alliance cemented, members introduced a “common code of prison rules,” designed to promote loyalty among members, reduce violence within the prison, and advance the common cause of the prisoners, while still maintaining a degree of autonomy for individual members to act as they desired.[17]

In attempts to break up the alliance, prison officials moved inmate leaders to different wings and prisons, but this instead helped the group spread throughout the prison system.[18] During this period prison officials gave the group its name: one official called the group “Comando Vermelho” in a memo to his colleagues. The name was adopted first by the press and then later by the group itself.[19]

Split with the guerrillas and the cocaine boom (1979-late 1980s)

In 1979, sensing an impending democratization movement, newly-installed President Joao Figueiredo and his military regime began to fear that they and members of their armed forces could face trial for human rights violations in a democratic system.[20] To protect themselves, Figueiredo “manipulated a grassroots movement demanding amnesty for thousands of political prisoners and exiles to insulate himself and his colleagues from potential indictments,” and passed the sweeping 1979 Amnesty Law, protecting political prisoners and their government captors from prosecution.[20] As a result, the leftist guerrilla elements of the CV were released from prison, weakening the group’s ideological bent.[21]

Meanwhile, the CV began to spread beyond prison gates. While many of its original members were bank robbers, the group quickly became involved in the burgeoning cocaine market. CV members helped traffic drugs overseas for Colombian cartels and distributed cocaine into the local Rio de Janeiro market. The cocaine trade proved incredibly lucrative and the CV grew rapidly: “by the end of 1985, the gang already controlled 70% of the drug market in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.”

During this period, the CV became increasingly involved in the provision of social services and administration of justice for the favela communities which it controlled.[22] In exchange for the cooperation of favela residents, the CV prohibited theft, robbery, and rape, and provided public goods like school supplies, medical equipment, and food distribution for the poor.[23]

The official end of the military dictatorship in 1985 marked the end of all remaining ties between the leftist guerrillas and the CV. Many of the guerrillas re-entered society and “rose inside political parties;” some would go on to hold elected office.[24]

Infighting and growing cartel-state violence (Late 1980s-2008)

Massive profits created incentives for different CV factions to splinter off as local leaders sought larger profit shares. Notable break-away groups which emerged during this period include Terceiro Comando and Amigos dos Amigos. As these groups clashed over territory in Rio, violence rapidly increased throughout the city.[25]

After Pablo Escobar’s death, the CV established a working relationship with the FARC, a Colombian guerrilla group which moved into the cocaine trade. Led by Luiz Fernando da Costa (alias Fernandinho Beira-Mar or Seaside Freddy) the CV procured arms and ammunition, which they delivered to the FARC in exchange for their supply of cocaine.

Pacification (2008-2013)

Beginning in 2008, in an effort to combat the widespread gang-related violence, Rio state police forces implemented a new “Pacification” strategy, “inspired by notions of community-oriented policing."[26] The strategy, which proceeds in stages, begins with state occupation of a target favela using overwhelming military force, followed by the installation of a proximity-policing unit (Unidade de Policia Pacificadora, UPP), which remains in the favela after military withdrawal. Rather than eliminating the drug trade, the UPPs were primarily tasked with securing the favela communities from gang-related violence.[9]

The early period of Pacification (2008–10) saw forty UPP battalions installed and 200 communities pacified, and was largely successful for the state. The CV, which suddenly ceased their violent confrontation with state forces, ceded significant territory to the state; one UPP effort left “the CV’s principal stronghold firmly in the hand of the state for the first time in more than a generation.”[27]

Resurgence in violence (2013–Present)

Despite its initial success for the state, corruption and over-expansion caused erosion in the Pacification system, and by 2013 program began to break down. Since then, violent clashes between the CV and state forces have surged.[28] In 2016, following the collapse of a 20-year truce between the CV and the PCC, violence surged further.[29] In recent months, sources consistently report frequent violent clashes between the CV and the PCC as well as other rival gang groups.[30]

Additionally, an emerging struggle for control of the Amazon region has intensified between rival gangs including the CV.[13] Seeking access to the valuable trafficking routes in the Colombia-Brazil-Peru tri-border region, the CV, the PCC, the Familia do Norte, and Colombian militia groups including the Border Command and the Carolina Ramirez Front have violently fought, contributing to a significant uptick in regional fatalities.[30]

Armed militia groups in Rio represent another growing challenge for the CV. Militia groups, formed by former and current police officers purporting to fight crime, have grown to control substantial territory throughout Rio. In recent years, violence between militias and gangs has intensified; in 2020 and 2021, “clashes between gangs and militias were responsible for 28% of reported fatalities” in Rio.[31] For example, in July and August 2022, the CV clashed frequently with the Campinho police militia for “control of the Morro do Fuba community in the North Zone.”[31]

The Comando Vermelho’s structure is loosely hierarchical yet allows significant autonomy throughout the organization. While there is no one single boss, imprisoned senior leaders exercise authority over favela leaders, known as donos, who deliver rents to the prison leaders as a form of “insurance scheme.”[32] Essentially, non-imprisoned members provide financial support and carry out instructions from imprisoned leaders, thus protecting themselves from retribution in the event that they are captured themselves. Beneath the favela donos, there are gerentes de boca (“drug mouth bosses”) who carry out drug trafficking, soldados (“soldiers”) who protect the favela’s turf, and vapors, the lowest-level gang members, who are often young teens.[33]

Within this structure, there is significant freedom for gang members to run operations as they see fit. According to Penglase, the “CV is most accurately described as a loose association of drug traffickers who come together for reciprocal assistance yet who act with great degrees of autonomy.”[34] Members of the CV operate with a shared identity and a common set of norms, but negotiate separately with individual drug suppliers, known as “matutos.”[35] High levels of autonomy have been characteristic of the CV since its inception on Ilha Grande: while prisoners were barred from violence against each other, they were freely allowed to pursue independent business.[36] Another distinct aspect of CV structure is that they allow their leaders to freely step away from gang activity if they choose to do so, in stark contrast with many comparable gangs who require members to remain active until death.

Inside prisons with a strong CV presence, senior leaders practice internal criminal governance. These leaders "rule prison life, settle internal faction disputes that occur outside of prison and make the final decision on any matters of mutual interest for faction affiliates."[37]

A defining characteristic of the CV is their willingness to openly engage the state in armed confrontation. Since the mid-1980s, as state forces steadily increased the severity of their crackdowns, the CV has responded with frequent violent clashes. Lessing writes that “nowhere else in Brazil, or in much of the world for that matter,” have Rio cartels, and primarily the CV, “systematically engaged the state in armed confrontation for so long.”[38] Currently, the CV continues to violently fight with state forces, and the ACLED reports that state violence represents a disproportionate share of reported fatalities in Rio de Janeiro.[31]

One suggested explanation for the CV’s violent conflict with the state is the varying levels of conditionality in state crackdowns––whether the state cracks down harder on violent cartel behavior. In 2008, after the highly-conditional Pacification policy was implemented, cartel-state violence declined, only to see a resurgence after the policy eroded.[9]

Examples of CV-State conflict

On 19 November 2016, a police helicopter of the Rio de Janeiro police was shot down by small arms fire during a clash with gang members of Comando Vermelho and crashed in a ditch. All four police officers on board were killed.[39][40] In June 2018, the Red Command launched attacks on a Bolivian Army base in Porvenir and a Brazilian police station in Epitaciolandia, in both instances stealing weapons and ammunition.[41]

The Comando continue to attract new Brazilian youth and bring them into their ranks.[42][43] In addition to sponsoring groups like neighborhood associations and special interest clubs, and organizing sporting events, one of the most common ways in which the criminal organization is able to catch the youth's attention is through the popular musical style of funk, a form of Brazilian music derived from Miami bass. Due to the genre's popularity with young Brazilians, the group "is known to have subsidized funk parties to recruit young kids for drug dealing".[44]

In addition to these funk parties (bailes funk), "where drugs and sex attract even bourgeois or petty-bourgeois youth",[45] held regularly by the organization every Sunday, funk artists are also sponsored by the Comando Vermelho to record songs and even entire CDs that promote the group and eulogize the group's dead members. Because the Comando pays for the production and recording of the funk songs, they "are often well recorded and of a high technical quality, and are being played on pirate radio stations and sold by hundreds of street vendors in Rio de Janeiro and in São Paulo".[45] Thus the funk artists that are in league with Comando Vermelho sometimes garner significant sales and airplay despite making a type of music that is Proibidão, or "extremely prohibited", in terms of where it can be sold and who can play it. In addition to promoting the crime group, the funk sponsored by the Comando also challenges the ideas and laws of the Division of the Repression Against Drugs.[44]

• William da Silva Lima, alias “The Professor” (Deceased): Lima was a founding member of the Comando Vermelho, having been imprisoned at Cândido Mendes during the 1970s after attempting to escape another prison. He took part in several bank robberies and was a major figure during the CV’s initial rise to power.[5] He later wrote a memoir, Four Hundred Against One, which describes his experience during the early years of the Comando Vermelho.[46] He died of a heart attack in his home in the South Zone of Rio at the age of 76.[47]
• Luiz Fernando da Costa, alias "Fernandinho Beira-Mar," alias "Seaside Freddy" (Incarcerated): Beira-Ma is an imprisoned senior leader who led the CV’s business dealings with the “Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia” (FARC), the Colombian guerrilla group that entered the cocaine trade following the death of Pablo Esobar. In 2001, he was captured by the Colombian military following a shootout, and was extradited to Brazil.[48][49][50][51]
• Márcio dos Santos Nepomuceno, alias "Marcinho VP" (Incarcerated): Considered the most powerful drug lord in Rio de Janeiro, he is currently the top leader of the Comando Vermelho, having taken control of this crime syndicate following the arrest of Fernandinho Beira-Mar in 2002, after Beira-Mar brutally killed Ernaldo Pinto Medeiros (a.k.a. UÉ), who was the founder and top leader of Amigos dos Amigos in retaliation for the murder of Orlando Jogador, one of the original leaders of Comando Vermelho (who would have been ordered by UÉ).[52][53][54]
• Elias Pereira da Silva, alias "Elias Maluco"/Crazy Elias (Deceased): He was one of the most powerful drug dealers in Rio de Janeiro and one of the most dangerous members of the Comando Vermelho, until he was arrested for the murder of famous Brazilian journalist Tim Lopes. His death is one of the most mysterious in the Brazilian criminal underworld: he was found dead, hanged in his cell on September 22, 2020, but it is unknown if he committed suicide or if someone inside the prison killed him and made it look like a suicide.[55][56]
• Roni Peixoto, alias "Gordo"/Fat Man (Deceased): He was known by the nickname "Gordo" (or Fat Man in English) because he was an overweight man at the time when he was the leader of the Comando Vermelho in Minas Gerais. Considered one of the biggest drug lords in the state during the 2000s, he was Beira-Mar's right-hand man, responsible for controlling drug trafficking throughout Minas Gerais and the introducer of crack in Belo Horizonte (the capital of Minas Gerais), which may have led to his brutal murder in 2022.[57][58][59][60][61][62]
• Cláudio Augusto da Silva Duarte, alias "Mano C" (Incarcerated): Leader of the CV in the state of Pará (in northern Brazil).[63]
• Ocimar Prado Junior, a.k.a. "Coquinho" (Incarcerated): Leader of the CV in the state of Amazonas (in northern Brazil).[64]

In 2006, Ross Kemp’s docuseries “Ross Kemp on Gangs” included an episode titled “Rio De Janeiro,” which investigated the Comando Vermelho and their police adversaries.[65] The 2002 crime drama film film City of God is based in a Rio favela and is inspired by true events surrounding the emergence of organized crime groups like the CV. The DVD release of this movie contains an extra documentary "News of a Private War" which features interviews with the police and local children from the favelas.[66] In the 2010 documentary “Dancing with the Devil,” director John Blair investigates criminal organizations in Rio’s favelas.[67]

The 2010 Brazilian crime film "400 contra 1" was inspired by CV founder William da Silva Lima’s memoirs and narrates a fictionalized history of the birth of the gang in the late 1970s.[68]

• Primeiro Comando da Capital
• Militias-Comando Vermelho conflict