Today, InSight Crime launches its investigation into the rise and spread of South America’s largest and perhaps most ambitious criminal gang...

Weekly InSight
December 11, 2020 ([link removed])

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Today, InSight Crime launches its investigation into the rise and spread of South America’s largest and perhaps most ambitious criminal gang: The First Capital Command, better known by its Portuguese acronym PCC. The report -- a product of two years of research and on-the-ground reporting in Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina with our partners at American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies ([link removed]) (CLALS) -- traces the gang from its beginnings in a São Paulo prison, to its emergence as player in the international drug trade. Installments of this six-part series, which paints the most complete picture of the PCC to date, will be published throughout next week.

Other highlights this week from around the region include a look at a leader of PCC rivals, the Red Command, in the Brazil-Argentina border region; how a Salvadoran drug kingpin’s seized hotels received government contracts to be used as coronavirus quarantine centers; and a review of a sweeping US Congressional report on drug policy in the Americas.


** Featured
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** The Rise of the PCC: Expansion in Brazil and Beyond ([link removed])
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It was August 31, 1993, and the sun was shining when eight men entered a makeshift soccer pitch in the middle of the Taubaté prison. Taubaté housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the state of São Paulo, but the authorities had organized the games anyway as a way for the prisoners to blow off steam.

The men on the pitch were from the Primeiro Comando da Capital (First Capital Command - PCC ([link removed]) ). They lingered until the guards opened the door for the rival team from the Comando Caipira (Redneck Command). The two were rivals beyond the pitch: the PCC controlled one wing of Taubaté, the Caipira the other.

Read the first installment of our investigation into the PCC > ([link removed])


** NewsAnalysis
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All News ([link removed]) >
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** Organized Crime in 2020 – Highlights of InSight Crime’s Annual Conference ([link removed])
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A number of Latin America’s leading academics, investigative journalists and security experts gathered...

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** Key Report Urges Ambitious Revision of US Anti-Drug Policy ([link removed])
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Congress has released a sweeping report on drug policy in the Americas, laying out a long list of recommendations for curbing drug...

Record Drug Seizure Caps Off Difficult Year for Chile ([link removed])
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Brazil’s Red Command Yet to Find Strong Foothold in Argentina ([link removed])
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Argentina Turns to DNA to Fight Cattle Rustling ([link removed])
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The Endless War to Control Northwest Colombia’s Drug Routes ([link removed])
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Social Media Used to Sell Exotic Animals in Brazil ([link removed])
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** Criminal Actors
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Profiles of some of the notable criminal personalities and groups that have marked this week.

Browse by country > ([link removed])
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** Red Command ([link removed])
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The Red Command (Comando Vermelho) is Brazil’s oldest criminal group, created in a Rio de Janeiro prison...
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** First Capital Command – PCC ([link removed])
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The First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) was inspired by...


** Media Mentions
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About Us ([link removed])
DECEMBER 5, 2020
CLARÍN ([link removed])

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"In confronting Covid, drug traffickers face the same problems as any business. And they adapt. "

— Interview with Co-Director Steven Dudley
Read our coverage of COVID-19 and organized crime > ([link removed])


** Impact
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What We do ([link removed])
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** Shaping Policy at the Highest Levels
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The work we do is often better described as drip-drip-drip than bang! Our position on the MS13 street gang, for instance, has long been the outlier as we focused on the “social” rather than their “criminal” composition. They were not a “drug trafficking organization” or a “mafia,” we reported, but a loosely knit network that expressed itself with collective acts of violence. They would not be “defeated” so much as subdued, little by a little, with a “whole-of-government” approach. This view, it appears, is now taking hold, per our conversations with high level US justice officials battling gangs, one of which told us recently: “We can’t just keep doing the same thing and expect the same result...We need to be looking at the problem as a whole and what can we be doing...We all recognize we can’t prosecute our way out of this.”
See our work on the MS13 > ([link removed])


** Our Trending Topics
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