A city governed by criminals.

last updated 8 January 2015

Brazil

Ralf Hoppe

A cabal of thieves, murderers, and drug dealers runs Brazil’s largest city, São Paolo, said Ralf Hoppe in Hamburg’s Der Spiegel. They call it the First Command of the Capital, and everyone refers to it by its Portuguese acronym, PCC, “as if it were a political party.” The gang is certainly better organized than most parties, with street captains answerable to block captains, who are answerable to neighborhood captains. And it’s more diverse than most parties, too: Among the 100,000 or so operatives are children, mothers, and old people. These armed and dangerous slum dwellers have the rest of the city in their grip. Muggings at gunpoint are so common that the tale of one’s latest holdup is a common icebreaker at middle-class parties. Earlier this year, when police tried to transfer some gang bosses to a high-security prison, the PCC unleashed its operatives on police across São Paolo, burning buses, blowing up police stations, and killing 180 people in a week—“just to demonstrate what it could do.” Since then, the rich have retreated into walled compounds patrolled by private guards. But how long will they be safe there? “This war isn’t over yet.”