HomeNewsBriefViolence in 'Pacified' Rio Favela as Police Shake Up Criminal Equilibrium
BRIEF

Violence in 'Pacified' Rio Favela as Police Shake Up Criminal Equilibrium

BRAZIL / 5 APR 2012 BY HANNAH STONE EN

A police officer has been murdered in Rocinha, a Rio de Janeiro favela occupied by police since last year, as part of a wave of violence that seems to have been caused by security forces disrupting established criminal networks.

Rodrigo Alves Cavalcante was killed early Wednesday morning while on patrol in Rocinha. Police have identified the suspect, an alleged drug trafficker who they say shot Cavalcante after he asked him to stop for questioning. Cavalcante is the first police officer to be killed in a "pacified" favela, reports O Globo.

Some 150 special operations police (BOPE) have been sent to Rocinha following the killing, reports the AP.

The neighborhood was already held by the authorities, after some 3,000 military police “invaded” it in a pre-dawn raid in November last year, in part of the city’s drive to seize control of selected shanty towns from the drug traffickers and militia groups who have long controlled them.

However, despite the apparent initial success of the operation to pacify Rocinha, violence has hit the neighborhood this year, with nine people shot dead there since February, according to the AP. Three people died in a shootout in March, which was thought to be a clash between members of the Amigos dos Amigos drug gang. The group dominated Rocinha until the police occupation, when gang boss Antonio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, known as “Nem,” was arrested while trying to flee in the trunk of a car.

Days later, a community leader who had been due to testify in the case against Nem was shot dead in broad daylight outside his community center in Rocinha. He had been accused of being part of the Amigos gang.

InSight Crime Analysis

Rio Radar, in a piece written before the latest murder, claimed that the wave of violence may be due to a rival gang taking advantage of the power vacuum created by Nem's arrest.

The website argues that the police invasion disrupted established power dynamics, dislodging Amigos dos Amigos, who had controlled the area since 2006. This stability, with a single criminal group in control, had meant that the area saw less shoot-outs and overt violence than some other favelas. Sources told Rio Radar that the Comando Vermelho gang had taken the upper half of Rocinha, while Amigos continued to hold the lower part. Some reports say that the Comando Vermelho ordered the shooting of the community leader.

This pattern mirrors that seen in places across Mexico, where government action to dislodge the dominant criminal group is often followed by an outbreak of violence, as other gangs fight to gain control of the newly-available territory. The city of Medellin, Colombia, offers another example of the phenomenon, with the supposedly reformed city seeing a fresh hike in the murder rate after criminal boss Diego Fernando Murillo, alias "Don Berna," was extradited to the US in 2008.

In Rio, the military police denied that the killing was a sign of the failure of the Rocinha occupation, and said that the main gang bosses had been arrested, and police had brought about an "absolute disarticulation" of their criminal structures.

With the latest murder, it seems likely that it will be some time before Rocinha is peaceful enough for the installation of UPP forces. But Rio authorities will no doubt pour resources into the area, which is a crucial site for them to control. As a former police captain told the Associated Press in November, the neighborhood has high strategic importance, and its pacification will allow the police to close a security loop around the parts of the city which will host most of the World Cup and Olympic events.

See video report, below.

A version of this article was published on the Pan-American Post.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

BRAZIL / 14 SEP 2021

South Africa has made a rapid succession of large cocaine seizures in recent months, illuminating how the country and region…

BRAZIL / 26 JUL 2022

Indigenous communities in Brazil are using drones to fight deforestation and the frequent assaults of loggers on their lands.

BRAZIL / 15 DEC 2021

A recent study of credit card cloning around the world revealed some startling disparities in the risks customers face across…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Chemical Precursor Report continues to be a reference in the region

19 MAY 2023

For the second week in a row, our investigation into the flow of precursor chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs in Mexico has been cited by multiple regional media…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Chemical Precursor Report Widely Cited

THE ORGANIZATION / 12 MAY 2023

We are proud to see that our recently published investigation into the supply chain of chemical precursors feeding Mexico’s synthetic drug production has been warmly received.

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime’s Paraguay Election Coverage Draws Attention 

5 MAY 2023

InSight Crime looked at the various anti-organized crime policies proposed by the candidates in Paraguay’s presidential election, which was won on April 30 by Santiago Peña. Our pre-election coverage was cited…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in OAS, CARICOM Reports

28 APR 2023

This week, InSight Crime’s work was cited nine times in a new report by the Organization of American States (OAS) titled “The Impact of Organized Crime on Women,…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Staff Cited as Experts by International Media

21 APR 2023

This week, InSight Crime deputy editor, Juan Diego Posada, was interviewed by the Associated Press about connections between the ex-FARC mafia and Brazilian criminal groups, and…