Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s 80-year-old president, completed a stunning turnaround to win a fourth presidential term, but with rising criminality and an opposition-controlled Congress, he may struggle to implement an effective security agenda.
Lula got 51.8% of the votes in the October 25 election, while his opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, garnered 48.2%. Lula will be inaugurated for his fourth term on January 5, 2027. Bolsonaro refused to recognize Lula’s win after the results were announced.
But he will face challenges. Lula’s victory comes just weeks after Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party (Partido Liberal – PL) won 23.5% of the legislature and 34.5% of the Senate, the largest portion for any party since 1988. Opposition parties control a solid majority in both houses.
Lula also faces some of the most sophisticated criminal organizations in the hemisphere, among them the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) and the Red Command (Comando Vermelho – CV), two groups the Trump administration declared terrorist groups in May. Violence is receding, but criminal portfolios are expanding well beyond drug trafficking, and criminal groups are laundering their proceeds through the financial mainstream.
See Also: Brazil’s Organized Crime Profile
Below, InSight Crime analyzes the main security challenges facing Lula as he enters his fourth term.
1. Corruption, Money Laundering, and the Criminal-Elite Nexus
Corruption has long been a central theme in Brazil’s politics. Scandals rocked both candidates at different points in their political careers, and multibillion-dollar kickback schemes have become the norm, no matter the party in power. Lula himself spent nearly two years in jail for corruption and money laundering related to Brazil’s historic Operation Car Wash (Operação Lava Jato), before the case was annulled by the Federal Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal – STF).
What’s new is the criminal integration into the elite political and economic classes. There are currently numerous ongoing investigations into some of the country’s top financial institutions and their connections to money laundering of criminal groups like the PCC.
The Banco Master Case
One of these cases embroiled Lula’s rival, Flávio Bolsonaro, who is under investigation for links with the central alleged protagonist in what is known as the Bank Master case. The bank, which collapsed in November 2025 under mounting scrutiny over its apparent Ponzi scheme, was owned by Daniel Vorcaro, who reportedly had a close relationship with Bolsonaro and allegedly provided him with money to help fund a feature film about his father. The younger Bolsonaro has denied any illegality. Still, Bolsonaro is one of numerous politicians connected to Bank Master, all of whom assisted or turned a blind eye to the Ponzi scheme, investigators say.
The scandal also involves organized crime. Alleged PCC laundering fronts invested in Bank Master. Indeed, Brazil’s criminal organizations are increasingly integrated in the country’s financial markets. The most notable example came from Operation Hidden Carbon (Operação Carbono Oculto) in which authorities uncovered a vast petroleum diversion, theft, and money laundering scheme that ran through financial institutions that reside on the country’s version of Wall Street, including numerous fintechs, the lightly regulated financial operations that have proliferated in Brazil.
Tackling these issues will require Lula to crack down on fintechs and other well-used financial instruments that facilitate money laundering. These include Pix, an instant payment system sponsored by the country’s Central Bank that is wildly popular in Brazil. Investigators told InSight Crime the system is also used to launder money by the likes of the PCC, but that the widespread use of Pix will make it hard to regulate. Other cases involve international banking and crypto-platforms, which will require the type of international cooperation governments have shelved in favor of more hard-line policing and military operations.
Still, Lula has been working to increase his bona fides, in part because organized crime became a central issue in the campaign. Cases like Bank Master and Hidden Carbon were made public under Lula’s watch, and, as part of his campaign platform, Lula promised to keep applying pressure on these criminal groups’ finances. It may be one of the few areas where he can keep his promise: Brazil’s federal police direct many money laundering cases.
2. Rising Criminality and the New Illegal Economies
Homicides have fallen in Brazil in recent years, but criminality has seemed to spread all the same, with organized crime present in more large-scale business operations and expanding throughout the country. Among these relatively new criminal industries are the aforementioned petroleum theft and resale business, as well as illegal gold mining. Both have brought in billions of dollars in revenue, leading to the nexus between the financial elites and street crime described above.
See Also: PCC Criminal Profile
At the same time, criminal groups have spread into new territories, often bringing their bloody battles with them. Some of the fiercest fights are in the Legal Amazon—an administrative region that includes the nine states that house the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. There, the Brazilian Forum on Public Security (Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública – FBSP), a non-governmental organization that compiles homicide and crime statistics, registered criminal groups in 344 of 772 municipalities in 2024. That year alone, there were 8,047 murders in the region—18% percent of all murders in the country, according to the FBSP.
The fighting was hard to ignore, and during the 2026 campaign, Bolsonaro and many other candidates promised to implement so-called mano dura, or iron fist, policies. Lula mostly ignored these calls, but in the closing days of his campaign, he said he supported efforts to lower the age for which children can be tried as adults for heinous crimes such as homicides or rape, echoing some of the hardliners and contradicting his own party’s position.
Still, Lula will have to work hard. Security is mostly implemented at the state level in Brazil. Lula’s platform supports a proposed constitutional amendment that would increase the participation of the federal government in state-level security matters. But opposition forces in Congress may thwart any of the president’s security initiatives.
3. Environmental Crime in the Amazon
The Amazon has become a crucial epicenter of criminal activity in Brazil. Illegal mining and logging have become mainstays, destroying vast swaths of the jungle and displacing thousands, among them indigenous communities.
The criminal gangs behind this push into the Amazon include the CV and the PCC, as well as smaller local gangs. These gangs seek control of river routes such as the Solimões and its numerous tributaries to traffic cocaine. But they are also diversifying these routes and are increasingly involved in other criminal economies, most notably illegal mining.
Lula has made the Amazon a focal point and made some progress. In 2026, deforestation hit its lowest level since 1988, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais – INPE).
However, the criminal networks behind the criminality remain intact. What’s more, with precious metals, rare earth minerals, international trafficking routes, and countless rare and valuable plants and animals, the Amazon has become a complex criminal ecosystem.
Featured Image: President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his running mate Geraldo Alckmin address supporters during a victory rally after winning the presidential runoff in São Paulo, Brazil, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
