Brazilian Gang Gone Global: Internationalisation of the PCC
Primeiro Capital Command (PCC) has emerged as Latin America’s biggest gang, with massive growth over three decades. There are an estimated 40,000 lifetime members and an additional 60,000 “contractors” that make up the gang. Last November, it was leaked that the group has 1,000 associates across the Atlantic in Lisbon, thousands of miles away. The gang has gone global.
The PCC was initially founded in August 1993 in the São Paulo jail Taubaté, as a response to horrendous jail conditions. A year before, another São Paulo prison, Carandiru, had been stormed by police to suppress a riot and 111 inmates were killed—some were shot to death and others mauled by police dogs. This shocking event was a catalyst to the formation of the PCC. Taking control of Taubaté and other prisons begun as a way to protect the rights of prisoners and their criminal interests.
Membership draws from the Brazilian prison population, which has grown by more than 400% since 2000. Members of the PCC are known as “brothers” and effectively rule the communities they control. This includes so-called ‘trials’ where members judge cases and hand out sentences. They run a lot of Brazil’s favelas in their own parallel state. In places where the state was not present, it has become a type of government for the people there.
The PCC, largely considered a “jailhouse fraternity,” has spread across Latin America after its creation in 1993. It first spread around Brazil, even in remote parts of the Amazon, through drug markets, smuggling routes, shantytowns, and prisons. The PCC monopolizes São Paulo’s crime scene and dominates Brazil’s domestic drug market. It has quickly established major presences around the continent. In Paraguay, the gang is accused of a major armed heist including bombings and targeted assassinations to collect about $8 million (approximately £6,278,800). In the past five years, the PCC has formed lucrative alliances with a variety of partners such as cocaine producers in Bolivia.
Not only has the PCC grown across South America, but it is on its way to a truly global organisation. It has strong links with the Serbian and Albania mafias, among others, but works mostly with Europe’s largest mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, which is based in Italy. The PCC has control of important traffic routes across the Atlantic, linking Brazil and Bolivia to Europe and Africa. The PCC can be help partly responsible for the ‘tsunami’ of the cocaine market in Europe. A São Paulo prosecutor, Lincoln Gakiya, remarked, “If someone is using cocaine in France, England or Spain there’s a very good chance it got there through the hands of the PCC.” Gakiya also estimated the PCC makes around $1 billion a year (approximately £785,450,000). According to the Economist, the PCC buys wholesale cocaine for $1,500 (approximately £1,178) per kilogram and in Europe, can sell a kilo for over $30,000 (approximately £23,564).
The gang is expanding its reach in Africa, particularly West Africa—a major transit zone for cocaine. In 2018, only one west African country, Senegal, made a list of the top 10 destinations for cocaine seized in Brazilian ports. A year later, several others—Nigeria, Ghana, and Sierra Leone—had joined the list. Western Africa acts as the link between both ends of the cocaine supply chain, expanding the region’s role as a strategic transit point and increasing the spread and depth of illegal activity, on the whole. Not only has the PCC reached west Africa, but also South Africa as well. The country is key to continue to send coke even farther, into emerging Asian markets like India and China.
Apart from cocaine, the PCC has other new streams of revenue. Brazilian police report that they are responsible for a rise of digital crimes. These include WhatsApp scams that fool millions of Brazilians a year. The PCC also has links with Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, a human trafficking group and have adopted expanded interests, such as illegal goldmines in the Amazon. In Colombia, they have ties with ex-members of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to provide training and weapons. In the area between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, the group has links with Lebanese criminals (who authorities believe have connections with Hezbollah) to launder money.
The United States government has labelled the PCC “the most powerful organized crime group in Brazil and among the most powerful in the world.” The group’s reach has spread worldwide and the power the group holds is unparalleled. Because of this, there is real concern not only for the crime occurring but also for the future and how the PCC will interact with the Brazil and other states. The last hurdles in achieving a global mafia would be to infiltrate national politics and the local economies. Lincoln Gakiya believes that the PCC is already beginning to do just that. Some fear that the PCC, as well as other gangs in Brazil, have the possibility to recreate similar conditions of a 1990s Colombia or a more recent Mexico, with the gang effectively exerting unchecked control and corruption over the government.
One Swiss-based think tank, Global Initiative, suggests several actions to tackle the PCC problem: challenging their local legitimacy, reviewing and improving Brazil’s imprisonment system, and exposing collusion between the PCC and law enforcement. Nevertheless, the PCC poses a formidable challenge to stability and security in Brazil and beyond, with urgent actions needed to tackle this transnational syndicate.
Image courtesy of UNODC via Wikimedia, ©2010. Some rights reserved.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the wider St. Andrews Foreign Affairs Review team.
