Amazon: Drug factions advance in communities – 07/12/2023 – Daily life

Drug trafficking factions in Brazil, such as the PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital) and CV (Comando Vermelho), and abroad have used indigenous and quilombola territories in their criminal activities and changed the routine in some of these communities in the Amazon.

Drug trafficking is pointed out as a driver of deforestation in the forest. The information comes from researchers and investigations by the police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office in states in the region.

Another harm is environmental. A UN report (United Nations Organization) published in June brought, for the first time, a regional cut that points to the expansion of illegal activities of organized crime in the Amazon for land grabbing, mining, logging and fishing.

This change widens faction disputes, previously related only to the control of cocaine and skunk circulation routes (the most potent type of marijuana). As they need to establish control and security of territories, the factions also start to control communities and natural resources, degrading the environment.

In Pará, according to data from the State Prosecutor’s Office, the members registered in the Comando Vermelho have already surpassed 23 thousand, with an increase of about a thousand new members per year. The number does not reflect the current size, as the death or departure of a member does not erase their registration number.

“This record is linked to the maintenance of the structure and its financial feedback. The organization uses this record to charge members what they call a little box”, said prosecutor Bruno Rodrigues, from Gaeco (Group of Special Action in Combating Organized Crime) of the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The information was presented at an event at the Brazilian Public Security Forum in June.

The CV operates on the so-called Route of the Solimões —one of the 900 indicated in the UN study —to transport drugs from Peru, Bolivia and Colombia through the rivers of the Amazon to ports such as Vila do Conde, in Barcarena (PA). From there, it is shipped to the European market.

The activity has grown, as have the seizures: from January to June this year, according to the Secretariat of Public Security and Social Defense of Pará, 4.6 tons of drugs were seized, mostly cocaine and skunk. The number exceeds all the apprehension last year, of 3.2 tons.

The PCC, on the other hand, has more control over Roraima and Rondônia. In the second state, the faction has adopted a posture of bringing regional groups into its orbit of influence and allowing its operation, according to Marcos Alan Ferreira, a researcher at the Federal University of Paraíba.

“These factions will need to control the territory, and then we have indigenous lands and quilombola territories, on which they will impose their rules to circulate the drug.” For Ferreira, who studies the internationalization of drug trafficking, the measure goes as far as controlling popular festivals and monitoring the daily lives of locals to create local governance.

As Amazonas still has areas that are difficult to access and without a strong presence of the State, the factions dispute these activities and also use the communities to hide from the authorities.

Also on the border, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Acre has seen this activity of factions grow, with an impact on the culture of the native peoples. “In this dynamic of consolidating logistical corridors, there is a trafficking corridor passing through indigenous land”, says Bernardo Albano, coordinator of the agency’s Gaeco.

“Traditionally we have the figure of the cacique, the tuxaua, who applies discipline and traditional rules. And a ‘front’ of the faction arrives as a second figure, or even challenging this authority”, says the prosecutor, who has seen an increase in the co-option of indigenous people to work in crime.

“The factions enter territories from urban centers. Quilombola communities and indigenous lands become places of refuge, with precarious roads and lots of forest. And then they begin to create a series of effects on these communities”, says geographer Aiala Colares Couto, a researcher at the State University of Pará and the Brazilian Public Security Forum.

According to Aiala, fear of violence forced a quilombola community in Barcarena, Pará, to install a gate to control entry and exit from the site. In another territory still in the city area, a faction has already seized and sold land.

He points out that there is still a lack of a strategy that deals with the issue of organized crime, prioritizing alternatives for the affected communities. “So that it is not a question of the war on drugs, that legitimizes violence against indigenous peoples and quilombolas, who have been victimized for a long time.”

A report by the Security Observatories Network points out that part of the crimes committed against these groups in Pará, from 2017 to 2022, involves land theft. The 474 occurrences recorded in the period left 47 dead and 25 lost their land.

The current focus of investigations, says Albano, is the expansion of factions such as the Comando Vermelho in the forest, in territories traditionally dominated by local groups, such as the Bonde dos 13, in Acre, and the PCC.

“This expansion takes place in practically all the states of the Amazon. We have noticed that it is going towards the coca leaf production zones, mainly in Peru. Before, it was a search for logistical mastery. Now, for the complete cycle, with production, transport and distribution.”

The expansion of recent years is reflected in the numbers of investigations. The Acre Public Prosecutor’s Office denounced 1,002 suspected members of criminal factions in 2021. The number rose to 401 in 2022 and, from January to May of this year, totaled 243 people.