Inside Rocinha, Brazil’s Largest Gang-Run Favela

We met our guide, Roberto, at 9 am in a Rio de Janeiro park. He called an Uber and we headed down the street along sun-bleached beaches, past luxury hotels, toward Rocinha, the largest slum in Rio - estimated to be the largest in Brazil. We had signed up for a half-day “favela tour” that we had found online.

As we drove through a long traffic tunnel, Roberto, a young Brazilian man in his twenties, told us he had grown up in Rocinha, and now lived in a different, better neighborhood. But he had strong emotions about Rocinha and seemed proud of the people who lived there. 

I, nevertheless, felt nervous. I remembered several previous trips to visit a friend who lived in the affluent Gávea neighborhood, with its country club and golf course, which sits just east of Rocinha. I remembered the stories my friend told me of how dangerous the tunnel could be, of the gangs that ruled Rocinha, of the troubling proximity of wealth and poverty that afflicts so much of Brazil. But today, the sun was shining, we had our windows rolled partially down, and I saw no sign of danger.

Our Uber stopped at an improvised parking area at the foot of the mountain on which Rocinha stretches. Motorcycles and scooters clogged the street, drivers standing by, holding extra helmets. These are the “taxis” that ferry visitors up the mountainside along the winding main street that snakes up the center of Rocinha. Our guide instructed my partner and me to hop on the backs of two scooters. There was no time to consider options. My driver shouted: “Hold on!” I grabbed the metal frame of the scooter, and we streaked up the street at breakneck speed, weaving around and between trucks, pedestrians, and cars, leaning in as we slalomed around the curves. There were no defined lanes; whoever could pass the other guy had the right of way. 

We finally reached the top, said goodbye to our scooter “taxi” drivers, and started back down the street on foot. We stopped at a lookout from which you can gaze down on what is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, stretching its sandy shoulders along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Ironically, I thought, it’s a better view of the Christ the Redeemer statue and Copacabana than many people living in Rio’s luxury apartment buildings have.

A little boy, obviously a budding entrepreneur, offered us some candy to buy and we took him up on the offer.

Roberto explained that, at the turn of the twentieth century Rocinha, which means “little farm” in Portuguese, was a fertile farming area on the slope of a mountain. Rio was the nation’s capital and industry and construction were booming, attracting poor migrants from the country’s drought-stricken northeast. With little affordable housing, they began constructing ramshackle houses that lacked plumbing or electricity. 

Rocinha’s population was exploding. By 1960 it was officially a favela. Roberto described it as a “city within a city,” with a population of almost a quarter million people.Compared to Roberto’s  unofficial tally, Brazil’s 2022 census reported that Rocinha had far fewer inhabitants: 72,021. Local residents claim it is many more, explaining that, in the jumble of houses, it is hard to accurately count the population. 

Walking down the main street, I noticed there were almost no side streets. Houses made of cinderblock or hollow clay brick (Brazilians call it tijolo baiano) stood chock-a-block with other houses, separated by narrow pathways. Electric cables and wires hung in mammoth spaghetti-like bunches, cords dangling to the street, the legacy of decades of residents’ illegally tapping into sources of electricity. 

We soon came upon a huge mound of garbage piled up on a corner. Next to it, two men in orange jump suits were shoveling it up into an orange and blue garbage truck, part of Rio’s sanitation fleet. 

I began to understand Roberto’s “city within a city” reference. Yes, it was a massive slum. Yes, it was chaotic, but it definitely was a city of its own, and I was surprised by the small businesses I saw, like the open-air fruit store down the street, stocked with bananas, pineapples, and mangoes, as well as cartons of eggs. Nearby was a Farmacia, a pharmacy with a good array of soap, diapers, toilet paper, toothpaste and other toiletries.

Rocinha, like many other favelas in Brazil, is a “city within a city” in other ways, too. It has its own rules and “law enforcers.” Not the government or police, but gangs, some of which are more powerful and better armed than the police. On our tour, we soon saw evidence of those gangs, along with efforts by community groups to provide services to the community and offer young people alternatives to joining a gang.

Roberto led us on foot to the Accorda Capoeira Center, where Rocinha’s young people – boys and girls – learn the Afro-Brazilian martial art of “capoeira,” which combines dance, music and athletic fighting. We clambered up the steep steps to a large open-air balcony and sat down to watch the performance. Teenagers, and some even younger, were dressed in loose pants with the colors of the Brazilian flag: green, yellow, and blue. They clapped along, playing percussion instruments or drums, as one or two of them would move to the center, twirling, spinning, doing handsprings. 

Accorda Capoeira Center was founded in 2004 by “Master Manel” (Manoel Pereira Costa) as a sporting and educational social project. The Center is free to Rocinha’s youth, funding its project through donations from the city government, visitors, and local businesses.  As “Master Manel” explained on the Center’s website: “My daily struggle is trying to give the children and teenagers the means to face life, whilst respecting the law. Also to encourage them to expand their horizons, in terms of knowledge and perspective, beyond the invisible wall that divides Rocinha from the rest of the world.” 

As Roberto led us farther down street, he asked us to take off our sunglasses, and warned us not to take any photos. People gathered near shops or on corners might be gang members who do not want to be identified, he whispered. Historically, Rocinha has been controlled by the gang called ADA (Amigos dos Amigos), or Friends of Friends, and is the center of Rio’s cocaine trade. The city’s favela policing program, Unidades de Pacificacion Policiais (UPP) moved into the Rocinha in 2011 and 2012 but pacifying it has been difficult and has led to violent clashes and what now appears to be an uneasy truce between the authorities and the gang. 

 Touring Rocinha, Roberto told us, was possible because the gangs realized that permitting tourists under controlled circumstances to enter the favela could allow residents to make some money – without undermining the gang’s control of Rocinha. We walked undisturbed along the serpentine paths that cut through the neighborhood, but twice I saw men carrying what looked like assault rifles. 

Our last stop in Rocinha was an arts center where young people can learn to paint or make jewelry, another effort to give them opportunities to reject gang life and stay tethered to the more positive aspects of their community. We said goodbye to Roberto next to the entrance to a sports complex with a swimming pool. Signs announced programs for the residents, including AA meetings. We took farewell photos on a nearby footbridge designed by the famous Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer – both symbols of the government’s attempts to “solve” the problems of favelas. 

Even for Brazilians who do not live in the favelas, crime, violence and public safety are top concerns.   On the plane back to Washington we watched a new Brazilian film called Vitoria.

 It’s based on the true story of an 80-year-old woman (played by the legendary Brazilian actress, Fernanda Montenegro) who lives in a slum in Rio’s Zona Sul near Copacabana. Terrified by the constant gunfire, blatant lawlessness, and frustrated by inaction by the police, she begins to record video of the crime unfolding beneath her windows. With the help of a reporter, she eventually dismantles a drug-trafficking operation. 

Gangs now are expanding from Brazil’s biggest cities like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo to the Amazon region, and beyond Brazil’s international borders.   A 2024 report by Brookings Institution Fellow Valerie Wirtschafter details how the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) gang “has transformed from a prison gang founded in São Paulo into a transnational criminal ‘leviathan’ with a presence throughout South America, Africa, and Europe.” 

Vitoria is an inspirational film, expressing the deep concern Brazilians have about their safety and one elderly woman’s bravery in trying to do something about it. Increasingly, however, Brazil’s gangs threaten more than the residents of the favelas; they threaten the world.