South America's Most Powerful Criminal Group Continues Its Invasion of the Amazon Forest in Search of Gold

Aerial picture showing an illegal mining camp at the Yanomami territory in Roraima State, Brazil, on February 24, 2023. (Credit: Via Getty Images)

SEATTLE - Recent reports are signaling that Brazil's biggest and best-organized criminal organization known as Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), or First Capital Command, continues to take advantage of the lack of police presence in remote areas of the Amazon forest in order to take over the region's gold mining activities.

Born in the 1990's in the wake of the 1992 Carandiru prison massacre where Brazilian security forces killed over 100 prisoners following a riot, the PCC's stronghold is the city of São Paulo, Brazil's most populous and economically important state.