Comando Vermelho (
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
for
Red Command) is a
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
ian criminal organization founded in 1979 in the prison
Cândido MendesCândido Mendes is a Brazilian city and municipality in the state of Maranhão. Its population in 2004 was 19,405....
, on the Ilha Grande island,
Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America. The city was the capital of Brazil for nearly two centuries, from 1763 to 1822 during the Portuguese colonial era, and...
, as a collection of ordinary convicts and left-wing political prisoners who were members of the
Falange Vermelha (Red Phalanx), which fought the military dictatorship. During the entire 1990s the criminal organization was the strongest in all of Rio de Janeiro, but today the principal leaders have been arrested or are dead, and the organization is not as strong.
The Comando Vermelho still control parts of the city and seeing streets tagged with "CV" is common in many favelas in Rio de Janeiro.
Comando Vermelho (
PortuguesePortuguese is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal. It is derived from the Latin spoken by the romanized Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula around 2000 years ago...
for
Red Command) is a
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
ian criminal organization founded in 1979 in the prison
Cândido MendesCândido Mendes is a Brazilian city and municipality in the state of Maranhão. Its population in 2004 was 19,405....
, on the Ilha Grande island,
Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America. The city was the capital of Brazil for nearly two centuries, from 1763 to 1822 during the Portuguese colonial era, and...
, as a collection of ordinary convicts and left-wing political prisoners who were members of the
Falange Vermelha (Red Phalanx), which fought the military dictatorship. During the entire 1990s the criminal organization was the strongest in all of Rio de Janeiro, but today the principal leaders have been arrested or are dead, and the organization is not as strong.
The Comando Vermelho still control parts of the city and seeing streets tagged with "CV" is common in many favelas in Rio de Janeiro. The principal rival gangs of the Comando Vermelho is the Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP,
Pure Third Command) and
Amigos dos AmigosAmigos dos Amigos is a criminal organization that operates in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. It was started up in 1998 when a Comando Vermelho was expelled from the organization for ordering the murder of another member. The gang's main rivals are Comando Vermelho and Terceiro Comando Puro...
(ADA,
Friends of Friends). The TCP emerged out of a power struggle amongst the leaders of Comando Vermelho during the mid-1980s.
Comando Vermelho and Funk
The Comando is always looking to attract new Brazilian youth and bring them into their ranks. In addition to sponsoring groups like neighborhood associations and special interest clubs, and organizing sporting events, one of the most common ways in which the criminal organization is able to catch the youth's attention is through the popular musical style of
funkFunk Carioca , favela funk and, elsewhere in the world, baile funk, is a type of dance music from Rio de Janeiro, derived from Miami bass. In Rio de Janeiro it is most often simply known as funk, although it is very different musically from what funk means in most other places...
, a form of Brazilian "booty music" derived from
Miami BassMiami bass , is a type of hip hop music that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. The use of the Roland TR-808 sustained kick drum, raised dance tempos, and occasional sexually explicit lyrical content differentiate it from other hip hop subgenres...
. Due to the genre's popularity with young Brazilians, the group "is known to have subsidized funk parties to recruit young kids for drug dealing".
In addition to these funk parties (bailes funk), "where drugs and sex attract even bourgeois or petty-bourgeois youth" held regularly by the organization every Sunday, funk artists are also sponsored by the Comando Vermelho to record songs and even entire CDs that promote the group and eulogize the group's dead members. Because the Comando pays for the production and recording of the funk songs, they "are often well recorded and of a high technical quality, and are being played on pirate radio stations and sold by hundreds of street vendors in
Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America. The city was the capital of Brazil for nearly two centuries, from 1763 to 1822 during the Portuguese colonial era, and...
and in
São PauloSão Paulo is the largest city in Brazil and the world's 7th largest metropolitan area. The city is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous Brazilian state. It is also the richest city in Brazil. The name of the city honors Saint Paul. São Paulo exerts strong regional influence in...
". Thus the funk artists that are in league with Comando Vermelho sometimes garner significant sales and airplay despite making a type of music that is Proibidão, or "extremely prohibited", in terms of where it can be sold and who can play it. In addition to promoting the crime group, the funk sponsored by the Comando also challenges the ideas and laws of the Division of the Repression Against Drugs.
Comando Vermelho in the News and Media
The video
Comando Vermelho Gang Membersshows a first hand experience with gang members of the Comando Vermelho and also interviews two members of the Red Command. In late June 2007, Rio de Janeiro police launched a large-scale assault on the area where up to 24 people were killed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/brazil/story/0,,2114658,00.html
Ross KempRoss Kemp is a BAFTA award-winning English actor, author and journalist, who rose to prominence in the role of Grant Mitchell in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders...
made a documentary about the Red Command (CV). The movie "City of God" or "Cidade de Deus" shows the early beginnings of Comando Vermelho. The DVD release of this movie contains an extra documentary "Notes of a Private War" which features interviews with the police and local children from the
favelaA favela is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. In the late 19th century, the first settlements were called bairros africanos , and they were the place where former slaves with no land ownership and no options for work lived. Over the years, many freed black slaves moved in...
s (slums).