Brazilian Drug Gang Takes Root in Peruvian Amazon
AUGUST 17, 2023
Four prisoners just over five feet tall, very young and agile as acrobats, are pitching a makeshift roof made of black sacks in the main patio of the prison in Pucallpa, a city of some 325,000 people that is the capital of Peru’s eastern Amazonian region of Ucayali. They stretch, twist, lift, hang and tie as though the movements were choreographed, creating an area of shade for a visitor.
Beneath the improvised tarpaulin, they arrange a table and two plastic chairs. A few steps away, painted on the polished floor, is the Brazilian flag. Solitary, it stands out. It is a sign of the hegemony of the Comando Vermelho (Red Command), a criminal organization known simply as the CV, whose name people are afraid to say aloud.
A Brazilian flag is painted on the floor of the patio of the prison in Pucallpa, the capital of Peru’s Ucayali region. Image by Pamela Huerta.
“There are ‘reds’ here, but I don’t know them,” one tells a visiting reporter. How does he know they are members of CV? “That’s what they say on the news. I don’t know anything. In my cell block there’s only one,” he adds nervously.
He won’t say more and asks to change the subject, because those people are dangerous. “It’s better not to get involved with them,” he warns, while casting a covert glance at the tops of the cell blocks surrounding the patio. The prison currently houses 2,531 inmates, 2,418 men and 113 women, more than three times its official capacity of 800.
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“The Brazilians hire residents of the community for their operations. Sometimes you see them walking through the community with their sacks or moving money. Everyone knows what they’re involved in, but you need to keep quiet or they’ll send someone to make you disappear. That’s what the community members themselves say over lunch or dinner,” says one former public servant who worked in the area around four years ago.
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