As Franquias Criminosas: Estratégias, Expansão e Consolidação do Primeiro Comando da Capital e do Comando Vermelho no Brasil

Abstract

This article analyzes the strategies and means employed by the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command (CV) to expand and consolidate their influence throughout the Brazilian territory. It aims to identify the modus operandi of these organizations, contextualizing the processes of territorial domination and comparing their tactical actions from economic, social, and coercive perspectives. The methodology is based on qualitative research of an exploratory and analytical nature, grounded in a systematic literature review and documentary analysis of diverse sources, including police intelligence reports, judicial sentences, academic articles, and investigative reports. The results demonstrate that the two largest criminal factions in the country operate under distinct management logics: while the PCC adopts a corporate "matrix-branch" model, with a bureaucratized structure and a focus on transnational logistics, the Red Command utilizes a franchise system, which grants autonomy to regional groups in exchange for symbolic and commercial alignment. The research reveals that factional expansion uses the prison system as a center for recruitment and ideological diffusion, maintaining social control in communities through "crime courts" and parallel governance. A significant highlight is the organizational mimicry of these factions regarding licit business models, establishing an analytical parallel between the structure of the Red Command and the Business Franchise Law (Law No. 13,966/2019). It is concluded that the hegemony of these organizations constitutes a deliberate geopolitical phenomenon, the containment of which requires multidimensional state strategies that integrate logistical intelligence, financial suffocation, and the reclamation of territories through social policies, moving beyond purely repressive models of confrontation.

Keywords: Organized Crime; Public Safety; First Capital Command; Red Command; Territorial Expansion.