Criminal Faction Grows by 20 Times in Three Years in Roraima and Creates Affiliates

01/10/2017 - 12h26

An intelligence report from the Roraima State government prepared last week confirms that the membership of the criminal faction PCC (First Command of the Capital) has grown by 1.900% in the State in only three years.

The document from the Secretariat of Justice and Citizenship is dated January 4, only two days after the massacre that left 33 dead in the Agrícola de Monte Cristo (Monte Cristo Farm) Penitentiary in the city of Boa Vista. According to the government, the massacre was carried out by members of the PCC.

According to the document, the faction started its operation in Roraima in 2013, with only 50 men in the beginning. That number had jumped to 1.000 by 2016, "bringing in new leadership and a reorganization in the chain of hierarchy in the criminal group", according to the report, whose distribution was restricted to authorities in the State's public security system.

The document attributes to PCC an order issued sometime around February 2016 for a series of crimes to be carried out in the State. This order was responsible for at least four attacks, "including two military police executions". There were two other attempts including a homicide against a civil policeman and "the execution" of another police officer.

Regarding the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), a criminal faction based out of Rio de Janeiro, the secretariat identified another 85 members. The group allegedly has been the author "of various attacks", including the torching of three municipal busses and a police car.

The FDN (Northern Family), which was responsible for the massacre that killed 56 in Manaus, has four members in the Roraima prison.
When asked about the growth of the PCC, Roraima's Secretary of Justice, Uziel Castro, declared on Monday (the 9th) that the "motivation is drug trafficking, which comes in from Colombia, Bolivia and Peru".

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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