First Capital Command – PCC: The largest and best-organized criminal organization in Brazil

The First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) was inspired by the Red Command (Comando Vermelho). Both criminal organizations were formed by prisoners as self-protection groups in Brazil’s brutal prison system. The PCC arose in São Paulo in the 1990s and has forged a bloody path to dominance throughout the country. The group, now the largest and best-organized criminal organization in Brazil, is believed to have members in all of the country’s states, and has expanded its operations internationally to neighboring South American nations in addition to Europe and Asia.

Last week, police in São Paulo carried out an operation targeting a network of 78 hotels allegedly owned by the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando do Capital - PCC) and run as storehouses to facilitate drug trafficking. The hotel network reflects the scale and sophistication of the PCC, which increasingly exploits licit industries such as housing and municipal contracts to operate criminal industries in Brazil. The PCC controls drug trafficking in São Paulo and traffics drugs outside of the country.

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