Red Command (Comando Vermelho)

Red Command (Comando Vermelho) The Red Command (Comando Vermelho – CV) is Brazil’s oldest criminal group. Created in a Rio de Janeiro prison in the 1970s as a self-protection group for prisoners, it started out with low-level crimes like muggings and bank robberies. But in the 1980s, the group moved into the cocaine trade, working with Colombian drug cartels and taking on a social leadership role in many of Rio’s marginalized neighborhoods.