Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Brazilian criminal organizations as transnational violent non-state actors: a case study of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC)

  • Published:
Trends in Organized Crime Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the evolution of Brazilian criminal organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC—First Command of the Capital), especially its transformation from a group advocating human rights to a transnational violent non-state actor. Created in the late 1990s by inmates at Taubate Prison, PCC is currently a key trigger of violence in South America. Since a massive attack performed in 2006 against security forces, the group continues to be highly operative, also coordinating drugs and arms smuggling in Brazil and abroad. A combination of sources supported this analysis of PCC’s evolution, mainly Brazilian official judicial minutes, NGOs reports, and news released from reputable sources. The article shows that PCC has gained strength in the 2010s, expanding illicit business operations in cooperation with other criminal groups. The results suggest that PCC’s expansion has changed significantly since their beginnings, into an actor that poses a challenge for the building of peaceful society in all of South America.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For a detailed conceptualization on direct, structural, and cultural violence, see Galtung 1969 and Galtung 1990.

  2. As can be seen throughout the article and as indicated in the references, while more than 40 articles and books were consulted and are referenced for the analysis of PCC evolution, I also made extensive use of news sources in some arguments. Given the novelty of the topic and the lack of studies on PCC expansion beyond Brazilian borders, the use of news reports was important for our analysis. These sources were carefully chosen under strict criteria. First, only news from reputable Brazilian and international news agencies were used, such as O Estado de São Paulo, BBC Brazil, Folha de São Paulo, ABC Digital (Paraguay), UOL and El País. News from InSight Crime, a think-tank linked to an important academic institution, the American University (USA), was also an important source. Second, each piece of news cited was compared with other news, as well as analyzed in light of literature on PCC. News that seemed sensationalist or that provided questionable data/information was discarded. Lastly, to confirm some information, phone interviews were conducted with three journalists from reputable news agencies that have covered PCC in the last 5 years. They kindly clarified some data reported in their news and explained how they got some key information. Moreover, on condition of anonymity, they provided some important data to be used in research in progress about PCC governance.

  3. Courts can use this rule in the Brazilian criminal law for very dangerous and undisciplined detainees. It lasts up to 360 days and permits the prisoner to have only two daily hours outside the solitary confinement. It also only permits two visits a week. These visits were key to allowing PCC leaders in solitary confinement to give orders to members outside prisons to attack security forces in 2006 and 2012, as well as to organize the rebellions in 2001. Specifically, the lawyers and wives were used to give the orders, known as salve geral (general save) in the slang of prisons dominated by PCC.

  4. This event is depicted in the movie Time for Fear (directed by Sergio Rezende, Brazil, 120 min).

  5. “Favelas are geographically well delimitated areas of precarious urban dwellings normally – but not always – characterized by the lack of formal property rights over real estate, absence of basic public infrastructure (...) and, more generally, lack of the state presence” (Biderman et al. 2014: 4).

  6. Mauricio H. Norambuena was head of the Chilean leftist group Front Patriotic Manuel Rodrigues (FPMR). He fled to Brazil in 1996 and was the leader of the kidnapping of the businessman Washington Olivetto in 2001. He is currently jailed in Campo Grande, Brazil.

  7. Furthermore, Paraguay is key for PCC arms supply, as demonstrated by justice investigations in recent years by the Public Prosecution Office (Procuradoria Regional da República 2011).

  8. Appointed to the Brazilian Supreme Court in February 2017, Moraes served also as Secretary of Public Security of São Paulo state (2015–2016). As a lawyer, he defended Transcooper, a cooperative of public transportation accused to be a front company to PCC’s money laundering. Although there is an ethical discussion about a Minister of Supreme Court that has served as lawyer of a criminal company, there are no proven links between Moraes and PCC. For an analysis of this topic, see Miranda (2017).

References

a) Peer-reviewed articles, books and working papers

  • Adorno S, Salla F (2007) Criminalidade Organizada nas prisões e os ataques do PCC. Estudos Avançados 21(61):7–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aydinli E (2016) Violent non-state actors: from anarchists to jihadists. Routledge, London

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bailey J and Taylor M (2009) Evade, corrupt, or confront? Organized crime and the state in Brazil and Mexico. JPLA 1(2):3–29

  • Biderman C, Sergio De Lima R, Pinho De Mello J, and Schneider A (2014) Pax Monopolista and crime: the case of the emergence of the Primeiro Comando da Capital in São Paulo, CAF Working Paper N° 2014/03, Development Bank of Latin America

  • Biondi K (2017) Movement between and beyond walls: micropolitics of incitements and variations among São Paulo’s prisoners’ movement the ‘PCC’ and the prison system. Prison Serv J 229(January):19–23

    Google Scholar 

  • Capie D (2016) Transnational crime. In: Caballero-Anthony M (ed) An Introduction to Non-Traditional Security Studies: a transnational approach. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • da Silva FP (2017) O Crime Organizado Transnacional: a atuação do Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) no Brasil e Bolívia. Monograph - International Relations Program – Federal University of Roraima, Boa Vista

    Google Scholar 

  • Denyer Willis G (2015) The Killing Consensus: police, organized crime, and the regulation of life and death in urban Brazil. University of California Press, Oakland, CA

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dias C, Darke S (2016) From dispersed to monopolized violence: expansion and consolidation of the Primeiro Comando da Capital’s hegemony in São Paulo’s prisons. Crime Law Soc Chang 65:213–225

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dias C, Salla F (2013) Organized crime in Brazilian prisons: the example of the PCC. Int J Criminol Sociol 2:397–408

    Google Scholar 

  • Dias C, Salla F (2017) Formal and informal controls and punishment: the production of order in the prisons of São Paulo. Prison Serv J 229(January):19–23

    Google Scholar 

  • Feltran G (2010) Crime e castigo na cidade: os repertórios da justiça e a questão do homicídio nas periferias de São Paulo. Caderno CRH 23(58):59–73

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feltran G (2018) Irmãos: uma história do PCC. Companhia das Letras, São Paulo

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferreira M (2017) Criminality and violence in South America: the challenges for peace and UNASUR’s response. Int Stud Perspect 18(1):64–80

    Google Scholar 

  • Galtung J (1969) Violence, peace and peace research. J Peace Res 6(3):167–191

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Galtung J (1990) Cultural Violence. J Peace Res 27:291–305

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Justus D, Khan T, Cerqueira D, Moreira GC (2018) The “São Paulo mystery”: the role of the criminal organization PCC in reducing the homicide in 2000s. EconomiA 19(2):201–218

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koonings K, Kruijt D (2004) Armed actors: organized violence and state failure in Latin America. Zed Books, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Lessing, B and G. D. Willis (2018). Legitimacy in criminal governance: managing a drug empire from behind bars. Article presented at Comparative Politics Workshop at University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA), Department of Political Science, Feb. 26, 2018. Available at: https://www.polisci.ucla.edu/event/benjamin-lessings-talk. Access: Apr 20 2018

  • Mandel R (2013) Global security upheaval: armed nonstate groups usurping state stability functions. Stanford Security Studies, Redwood

    Google Scholar 

  • Manso B, Dias C (2017) PCC, sistema prisional e gestão do novo mundo do crime no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Segurança Pública 11(2):10–29

    Google Scholar 

  • Marques A (2010) “Liderança”, “proceder” e “igualdade”: uma etnografia das relações políticas no Primeiro Comando da Capital, Etnográfica—Revista do Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia 14(2)

  • Möller F (2011) News reports and written narratives: collecting information using different types of empirical sources. In: Höglund K, Öberg M (eds) Understanding peace research: methods and challenges. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Öberg M, Sollenberg M (2011) Gathering conflict information using news resources. In: Höglund K, Öberg M (eds) Understanding peace research: methods and challenges. Routledge, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Oliveira GF, da Costa GVL (2012) Redes Ilegais e Trabalho Ilícito: Comércio de Drogas na Região de Fronteira de Corumbá/Brasil – Puerto Quijarro/Bolívia. Boletim Gaúcho de Geografia 38:137–156

  • Peters A, Koechlin L, Zinkernagel G (2009) Non-state actors as standard setters: framing the issue of an interdisciplinary fashion. In: Anne P, Koechlin L, Förster T (eds) Non-state actors as standard setters. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pimenta P (2006) Relatório da Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito destinada a investigar as Organizações Criminosas do Tráfico De Armas. Câmara dos Deputados, Brasília

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinheiro A (2006) Narcoterrorism in Latin America: a Brazilian Perspective. Joint Special Operations University, Hurlburlt Field

    Google Scholar 

  • Sampaio A (2017) Aggressive takeover: shifts in Brazil underworld augur rising violence, IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review, 44–49

  • Schneckener U (2006) Fragile Statehood, Armed Non-State Actors and Security Governance. In: Bryden A, Caparini M (eds) Private Actors and Security Governance. LIT & DCAF, Berlin, pp 23–41

    Google Scholar 

  • Schneckener U (2009) Spoilers or governance actors? Engaging armed non-state groups in areas of limited statehood. In: SFB-Governance Working Paper Series, no. 21. Research center (SFB) 700, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Stake R (1995) The art of case study research. Sage, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Von Lampe K (2015) Organized Crime: Analyzing Illegal Activities, Criminal Structures and Extra-Legal Governance. SAGE, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, P (2008). Violent non-state actors and national and international security. International Relations and Security Network. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/93880/VNSAs.pdf. Accessed June 11 2017

  • Zabyelina Y (2009) Transnational organized crime in international relations. Centr Eur J Int Sc Stud 3(1)

b) Newspapers and official documents

Download references

Funding

This research was funded by NewtonGrant/British Academy (United Kingdom), Grant # NMG2R2\100064. The author is very grateful to the reviewers for the suggestions and comments for improving the article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Department of International Relations, João Pessoa – PB, Brazil

    Marcos Alan S. V. Ferreira

Authors
  1. Marcos Alan S. V. Ferreira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marcos Alan S. V. Ferreira.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Marcos Alan S. V. Ferreira declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ferreira, M.A.S.V. Brazilian criminal organizations as transnational violent non-state actors: a case study of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). Trends Organ Crim 22, 148–165 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-018-9354-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation