The attacks have become somewhat of a regular occurrence in the sleepy towns of São Paulo state. At the end of last year, six municipalities (including popular tourist getaways Campos do Jordão, Cunha, and São Luiz do Paraitinga) were targeted by similar operations: multiple banks blown up, and gunfire at the local police station.

Data from the São Paulo public security department says that 102 such attacks took place in 2018, following 100 in 2017—an average of one per month.

While these attacks are not restricted to São Paulo (neighboring states Minas Gerais and Paraná have also suffered from similar operations), the concentration of cases in the state point towards the concerted effort of local gangs.

Bank robberies were the original modus operandi and revenue source of São Paulo’s gargantuan crime gang, the First Command of the Capital (PCC). While the organization’s main focus now lies with drug trafficking, controlling smuggling routes into the country from Bolivia and Paraguay and exports from the port of Santos, there is reason to believe the PCC is still behind the explosive attacks on countryside banks.  

The sophisticated weaponry and equipment on show (assault rifles, explosives, armored cars, and drones), as well as the apparent collusion of the local law enforcement (casualties are rare and arrests even more so), all suggest the involvement of a highly organized gang. A 2016 report from the Public Prosecution Service into these gangs included an accusation that members of the police had worked in cahoots with the PCC, giving them useful information about the deployment of local law enforcement so the gang could carry out its robberies.

Recently, police foiled a brazen plan forged by leaders of the PCC to break Marcos “Marcola” Camacho—deemed as being the head of the gang—out of a state penitentiary in São Paulo. The prison break plan reportedly involved the assistance of the same bank-robber gangs, and included details remarkably similar to their operations in small São Paulo towns. Their strategy involved blocking escape routes with traffic spikes, blocking the response from law enforcement by opening fire on police stations, while blowing up the prison’s walls.

After discovering this plot, the Ministry of Justice ordered Marcola and other PCC leaders be transferred to federal prisons around the country, which took place on February 13.

The Wild Southeast

This wave of bank robberies has been given the somewhat crass nickname of the “new cangaço“, in reference to Brazil’s own Wild West period at the turn of the 19th century. In the arid Northeast of Brazil, gangs of men and women rose up against the incipient government and became outlaws, roving the region and sacking banks. They lived a nomadic lifestyle in protest of the lack of jobs, food and public services offered by the government.

While in many ways savage in their practices, often robbing innocent travelers and raping women, the Cangaceiros—as they were called—were idolized by the common man, seen as rebel outlaws against the dishonest government, as opposed to blood-thirsty bandits.

The “King of the Cangaço” was a man named Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, known all around Brazil as “Lampião” (the Portuguese word for lamp, for his renowned ability to light up the night sky with his gunfire).

While public opinion is less favorable to the PCC and other organized crime gangs, particularly due to their sadistic exploitation of poor youths in the drug trade around Brazil, there is a certain “Robin Hood” element to these attacks, stealing from the rich in a country rife with government and big-business corruption.