How Brazil's criminal groups threaten the Amazon rainforest

Carolina Ricardo, executive director of the Instituto Sou da Paz, a Brazilian peace think tank.

The Amazon is no longer just the world's largest tropical forest or a crucial carbon sink. It is fast becoming the new frontline of Brazil's criminal groups and nature crimes.

Organized crime, long embedded in Brazil's cities, is now exerting growing control over vast, often lawless, stretches of the Amazon basin.

The implications are far reaching, from environmental destruction and rising deforestation to surging violence and weakened state sovereignty.

According to the "Map of Criminal Organizations," published by Brazil's Ministry of Justice and Public Security, the country is home to 88 distinct criminal groups. Two of them – the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command (CV) – operate in Brazil and internationally, with a strong presence in prisons.

These violent and armed groups initially focused on drug trafficking and territorial control but have since expanded into money laundering through businesses such as petrol stations, gold trading, luxury real estate, and even public contracts.

This diversification has increased their financial power and reach. It means organized crime now has a visible impact in the Amazon rainforest, where these criminal groups are invading Indigenous lands, engaging in illegal logging, predatory fishing, illegal gold mining, and wildlife trafficking.

A study by Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, a think tank, found that criminal organizations are present in at least 178 of the Amazon's 772 municipalities.

Due to the complexity of monitoring the vast rainforest, the Amazon has become a key drug trafficking corridor. The presence of criminal groups in the Amazon has intensified since 2016, including the Red Command, Family of the North, and PCC, which in turn is fuelling deforestation.

Between 2018 and 2022, deforestation in the Amazon rainforest rose by 83.5%, illegal timber trafficking by 37.6%, and forest fires by 51.3%. Illegal mining and land grabbing are also major threats to the rainforest.

Wherever these groups establish themselves, other forms of violence follows, including sexual violence, femicide, child exploitation, and slave-like labor.

In March 2025, Brazil's Federal Police dismantled a militia group involved in illegal gold trading, which laundered money through shell companies based in the northern Brazilian states of Amazonas and Roraima.

Historically, Brazil has pursued a violent, repressive approach to public security that often results in deadly confrontations. This strategy, often ineffective, erodes public trust, particularly among the most vulnerable communities.

In the Amazon, defending human rights is essential to prevent violence committed by criminal groups from spreading.

Indigenous, quilombolas, and riverside communities, among other groups, must receive state guarantees of protection.

Coordinated efforts should involve intelligence services, the federal police, navy and military, as well as government environmental agencies like the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio).

The fate of the Amazon rainforest cannot be seen as separate from public security or tackling crime. Nor can global climate goals succeed without tackling the criminal economies that accelerate deforestation.

Ahead of COP30, Brazil has a key opportunity to reframe environmental protection as both a national and international security issue, and to lead a global coalition against nature crimes based on best practices and data-driven strategies.