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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Tom Phillips

How a Brazilian prison gang became an international criminal leviathan

PCC Brazil Prison Cocaine São Paulo Europe Amazon Giovanni Falcone João Laet Sun Tzu
A young member of the Brazilian crime group, the First Capital Command, shows off his revolver on the outskirts of a city in the Amazon.
A young member of the Brazilian crime group, the First Capital Command, shows off his revolver on the outskirts of a city in the Amazon. Photograph: João Laet/The Guardian

In a forest clearing deep in the Brazilian Amazon, a bullet-scarred Venezuelan gangster sat smoking Colombian skunk.

“Everyone knows there are only two things this life leads to: prison or death,” the drug dealer said as he narrated his 15-year criminal trajectory, from a teenage rum smuggler to a member of one of the world’s most fearsome organized crime groups.

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