Brazil’s main criminal group, the First Capital Command (PCC), is expanding internationally and has found a key ally in China. Asia has become one of the most profitable markets for South American cocaine, with Chinese criminal groups now collaborating with the PCC to produce synthetic drugs and launder illicit profits.
This alliance carries significant risks, from the expansion of the synthetic drug market in Latin America to a growing financial sophistication within the PCC. It also strengthens the group’s global logistics by leveraging the Chinese diaspora and established trade routes between China and the region.
Analysts note that the collaboration between China’s criminal networks and the Brazilian PCC extends beyond a typical underworld partnership. Some experts argue that the Chinese State tacitly allows or even leverages these criminal organizations to serve its broader geopolitical and economic interests. These groups can act as a parallel system to official State and corporate channels, using their global networks and sophisticated financial mechanisms to support illicit trade and money laundering. This model allows Beijing to extend its influence and bypass international legal and financial scrutiny.
“This is a transformation that poses unprecedented challenges for both Brazilian and foreign law enforcement authorities and requires a qualitative leap in intelligence, cooperation, and technology,” Rodrigo Duton, a senior officer with the Rio de Janeiro Military Police and a researcher at the Canberra, Australia-based think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), told Diálogo.
Cocaine
Seizures of cocaine destined for the Chinese market are on the rise in Brazil. In July, the São Paulo Military Police discovered nearly 350 kilograms of cocaine with “Hong Kong” printed on the packages.
“The PCC is seeking to reduce its dependence on saturated markets, such as Europe, by taking advantage of Asia’s less supplied market and higher entry barriers, which hinders competition and allows for the consolidation of exclusive networks,” Duton said.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the price of cocaine in East Asia can be four to six times higher than in traditional European markets, in some cases exceeding $150,000 per kilogram. “Among the key nodes on the PCC’s routes in Asia, Hong Kong has now become a crucial point for the redistribution of shipments and money laundering,” Duton said.
Trafficking to Hong Kong is facilitated by existing maritime links between Brazilian ports such as Santos and Paranaguá and Chinese ports. The cocaine travels on commercial shipments, hidden in legal cargo such as soybeans, meat, and wood, of which Brazil is a major exporter.
Synthetic drugs
Thanks to collaboration with Chinese criminal groups and Mexican cartels, the PCC is also improving its production of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines and nitazenes, which are opioids 50 times stronger than fentanyl and often arrive by mail from China. These websites openly advertise and sell these materials, despite the Chinese government’s ability to shut them down, strengthening experts’ argument that Beijing tacitly allows these operations to continue. In December 2024, the São Paulo Federal Police discovered a local laboratory using nitazenes imported from China to produce synthetic mixtures known as drug K.
Methamphetamine labs are also on the rise, such as the one discovered in São Paulo in January during Operation Heisenberg. The Brazilian criminal network had the collaboration of a Mexican chemist and Chinese citizens, members of Chinese criminal groups, residing in the country. According to investigators, the start of local production caused the price of methamphetamine to plummet from $80 to $12 per gram.
“The convergence between local factions, such as the PCC, and foreign actors, such as Chinese criminal groups, is expanding the reach and resilience of synthetic drug production chains,” Duton said, stressing that this new alliance increases the risks. “These are health risks, due to the increase in overdoses; regulatory risks, as new molecules appear on the market faster than the legal framework can adapt; and logistical risks, linked to the use of legal foreign trade channels, such as postal shipments.”
Money laundering
The alliance with Chinese organized crime networks has allowed the PCC to move, convert, and hide huge amounts of money in Brazil and abroad. This is done by exploiting fintech, cryptocurrencies, and the informal Chinese compensation system known as fei ch’ien (flying money). This system allows debts to be settled between operators in Brazil, China, and intermediary countries without physically moving money, completely bypassing the formal banking system.
“When combined with cryptocurrencies and fintech, this mechanism creates a triple layer of concealment, in which the origin, transit and destination of the funds are dissociated. Traceability is not completely lost, but it is severely compromised,” explains Duton.
In late 2024, the Brazilian Federal Police uncovered a vast money laundering and evasion scheme in a bank partially controlled by Chinese citizens with ties to criminal organizations, including the PCC. Investigations revealed the system had illegally moved around $1 billion over the last five years, using banks, accountants, and at least three fintech companies to hide capital and transfer funds to various locations, including China and Hong Kong.
Cooperation between the PCC and the Chinese mafia in this area has given rise to a highly resilient parallel financial ecosystem that strengthens organized crime’s ability to shield its assets. “To tackle this phenomenon, we need […] greater technical expertise in cryptocurrency analysis, and stronger international cooperation so that illicit flows can be intercepted in real time,” Duton says.
According to the expert, “every delay is tantamount to giving the PCC the opportunity to consolidate and even expand its strategic advantage in transnational crime,” with consequences that threaten not only Brazil’s but global security.
