SUMMARY

The criminal network Terceiro Comando (Third Commando) – also known as Tercer Comando - emerged in the early 1980s. The group has become one of the dominating drug trafficking networks of Rio de Janeiro. It has mostly operated in Rio’s numerous favelas (shantytowns), important stockpiling points in the trade of cocaine and marijuana. Besides drug trafficking it made money from arms trade and bank robberies. The Terceiro Comando is said to lack a political ideology.

Similarly to other drug trafficking networks the Terceiro Comando has no big chief. Instead, it is a horizontal reciprocity network that helps the member-gangs in different favelas to support each other in acquiring drugs and guns. Still there are great inequalities in the distribution of power and division of profits among the members. The drug trafficking organisations inside the shantytowns has a hierarchical structure headed by a chief trafficker, the dono da boca de fumo (owner of the outlet), or, the more powerful dono do morro (owner of the hill). The Terceiro Comando employs many children and teenagers as robbers or murderers.

According to former drug traffickers they have received training in the use of weapons by the members of the Brazilian army and youths undergoing military service. Following the death of the leader of another rival criminal ring ADA (Amigo dos Amigos, Friend of Friends) in 2002, the Tercer Comando and ADA briefly joined forces.

There have been clashes between the Terceiro Comando and the police. Due to the lack of political incompatibility and of reliable information, they have not been included in UCDP data.

The Terceiro Comando has been involved in the non-state category of UCDP organised violence.