Brazil 2026

Brazil ranks among ACLED's top ten most violent countries globally, driven by a patchwork of powerful drug gangs — Comando Vermelho (CV), Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Amigos dos Amigos (ADA) — that control entire neighborhoods in Rio de Janeiro and other major cities. Military and police operations inside Rio's favelas have become a recurring feature of daily life, while a separate but connected conflict plays out in the Amazon, where criminal networks and land-grabbers target indigenous communities and environmental activists.

Background

Rio de Janeiro's favela-based drug gangs trace back to factions that formed inside the city's prison system in the 1970s and 1980s, most notably Comando Vermelho (CV). Rival factions such as Amigos dos Amigos (ADA) later split off, while Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) emerged from São Paulo's prisons to become one of Latin America's largest criminal organizations, with a footprint extending well beyond Brazil's borders. Successive state and federal governments have responded with periodic "pacification" programs and military interventions, including a 2018 federal security intervention in Rio, but gang control over swaths of the city's favelas has proven resilient to each new policy cycle.

In parallel, Brazil's Amazon region has become host to a distinct but related conflict: illegal loggers, miners and land-grabbers — some tied to the same criminal networks that control urban trafficking routes — have repeatedly clashed with indigenous communities and environmental defenders attempting to protect protected land.

Brazil's gangs have also become significant international players in the cocaine trade, using the country's Atlantic ports to move product produced in neighboring Bolivia, Peru and Colombia onward to European markets, where prices — and profits — are substantially higher than in the traditional North American trafficking routes. That international dimension has given factions like the PCC a transnational reach that Brazilian law enforcement has struggled to match.

Current Situation (2026)

ACLED continues to rank Brazil among the ten most violent countries in the world, a status driven primarily by the scale and persistence of gang-related armed violence rather than a single unified conflict. CV, PCC and ADA compete for control of trafficking routes, arms markets and territory, with Rio de Janeiro's favelas remaining the most visible battleground: military and police operations there are now a recurring rather than exceptional event, often producing significant civilian casualties alongside gang losses.

In the Amazon, violence tied to illegal logging, mining and land-grabbing continues to threaten indigenous communities and the environmental activists and officials who attempt to enforce protections. ACLED and other monitors have flagged the growing overlap between organized criminal networks and environmental crime as a structural risk — one with direct implications for global climate policy given the Amazon's role as a carbon sink. Analysts have also warned that criminal networks are increasingly capable of infiltrating local political and law-enforcement institutions, particularly in the northeast, where organized crime has been expanding its footprint.

Brazil's federal structure complicates any unified response: public security is primarily a state-level responsibility, meaning Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other states pursue their own — often uncoordinated — strategies, while the federal government's authority to intervene directly, as it did in 2018, remains a politically contentious and legally constrained option rather than a standing tool.

Regional Hotspots

• Rio de Janeiro (favelas) CRITICAL
• Sao Paulo (gangs) HIGH
• Amazon (environmental conflicts) HIGH
• Northeast (organized crime) MEDIUM

Key Actors

Comando Vermelho (CV) & Rival Factions

Rio de Janeiro's dominant drug trafficking faction, in ongoing competition with Amigos dos Amigos (ADA) and the São Paulo-based Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) for control of trafficking routes and territory across major Brazilian cities.

Brazilian Military & Police

Conduct recurring operations inside Rio's favelas aimed at disrupting gang control, often at significant cost in civilian and gang casualties. Federal security interventions have periodically supplemented state-level policing without resolving the underlying territorial control problem.

Amazon Land-Grabbers & Illegal Miners

Loggers, miners (garimpeiros) and land-grabbers, at times linked to organized crime networks, drive violence against indigenous communities and environmental activists across the Amazon.

Indigenous Communities & Environmental Defenders

On the front line of the Amazon conflict, indigenous groups and environmental activists face intimidation, land invasions and lethal violence when they attempt to enforce protections on their territories, often with limited state protection given the remoteness of the region.

Humanitarian Impact

Civilian casualties from favela raids and gang crossfire remain a persistent feature of life in Rio de Janeiro and other major cities, with residents of gang-controlled neighborhoods facing curfews, extortion and periodic mass displacement during police operations. In the Amazon, indigenous communities and environmental defenders face direct threats and violence from illegal loggers, miners and land-grabbers, a pattern that human rights groups say has intensified alongside rising deforestation pressure. Brazil has for years ranked among the deadliest countries in the world for environmental and land defenders, and the same remoteness that makes the Amazon valuable for conservation also makes it difficult for state authorities to protect those who try to defend it.

Related Conflicts