To Live and Die in a Rio Gang War

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You're listening to the Away Days podcast.

On the ground outside, reporting from the underbelly with me, Jake Hanrahan.

To watch Away Days documentaries, go to youtube.com/slash at awaydays TV.

this is part two favela government

episode four

this podcast is a production of h11 studio and coolzone media

After speaking with Floes, the aspiring rapper, we go for a walk around this area in the favela.

As we do, a small storm breaks out.

Rain showers down from the clouds above and drenches everything.

The lush jungle and the harsh concrete of the favela turn a darker shade with the rain.

We head up to the hills and cross a bridge over what is an open sewer duct.

Human waste and filth stream down the open cement, down the hill into God knows where.

So this is

the other side of the favela.

Basically everything here, even down to the sewage, is all makeshift.

The government doesn't have any presence here.

So basic things are just not getting taken care of.

Everything that does happen is either down to the gang or down to the community.

And I guess the question is, is that because the gangs are here or is it because the government isn't here?

Who knows?

Unlike the state, CV does provide for the favelas, but it also rules them.

through lead and gold, violence and cash.

Perhaps then the favela government government is not so different from the actual government.

After all, Brazil has one of the most corrupt political systems in the world.

Leadership talks up reforms and anti-corruption, but it's mostly meaningless.

The police, the military, the justice system, even the health sector have all had recent scandals.

Trust in Brazil is at an all-time low.

The number of Brazilians living in the favelas is growing and the police units the government sent in to pacify them have brought extortion and massacre.

The favela is truly stuck between a rock and a hard place.

CV continues to thrive underground, controlling their turf and expanding their criminal enterprise from the favelas to the world.

Since we left the favela a year ago, at least two of the people we met there were killed before our documentary was even published.

One of the cell leaders we met, you'll remember his name as Fat Sexy, was shot dead by police in a shootout in the favela one morning last summer.

Another lad we met who didn't speak to us on the record but let us take photos was also killed.

Information is sparse on him but from what I've been told he was killed by a rival gang.

He was just a teenager.

And a few months after we left I spoke with Diogo from the Luta Livre gym.

That morning, there was a heavy police incursion into Falat Fogatero.

I could hear the constant sound of near-distant gunfire in the background as he told me about the situation.

It's all so bleak.

If you want to see the documentary we made whilst reporting this, it's out now.

Go to youtube.com slash at awaydays TV.

The documentary is called Favela Government.

now i've presented this podcast in a straightforward way documenting my first-hand perceptions of the favelas the gangs the people it's much easier for the listener that way when the media is presented in a podcast format But as I've mentioned, I was there with a small team.

My guys that I work with when making independent documentaries, either for Popular Front, Away Days or elsewhere.

So to end this part of the Away Days podcast, I wanted to speak to Louis Hollis.

He's an incredible documentary filmmaker and photographer.

He was the lad that was with me every step of the way in the favela and he has some interesting insights.

What was your first impression when we first went in there?

Maybe what I wasn't expecting was the

almost the sense of separation.

And I think it was when we passed that first checkpoint because because we'd already been taken on motorbikes from a kind of lower point

in the you know, the kind of entry point to the favela.

But it was going past that first checkpoint and realizing that okay, this is these aren't like guys that just come out after dark or are sort of hiding, it's kind of very out in the open, and you're in you're in their territory now, it's like literally their territory.

I suppose just the kind of maze-like quality of the favela and how how to an outsider,

it's kind of impregnable in a way.

Yeah, I realize like you, like, once we're past a certain bit, it's like no one's coming here to get you out.

Like, you know what I mean?

It's crazy.

Like, it was easy to get in once we had the access and the permission, but without that, you're getting shot.

You know what I mean?

I could kind of, I don't know about you, but I kind of felt that at one point.

Like, you know, when we're in the alleyway and the lad there is like, oh,

yeah, they call this alleyway the place where bullets fly.

I was like, oh shit, like, you know, it kind of made me realize, like, this is actually night and day compared to the city.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think, um, the moment where I really realized was, I think,

when we got to the kind of that little hillside

moment of realization of the kind of level of control that these guys have over this area is

when we came across their sort of wholesale drug supply area.

The sort of it was like a kind of, you know, a disused bus stop where they're all hanging out and they're just openly

sorting, you know, drug packages, hanging around with a whole array of weapons and probably be quite easy to surveil that if the police really wanted to.

The guys are making no attempt to hide their activities.

Yeah, it was almost the opposite.

It was like they want you to see, because I guess for them, that's like letting all the people that need the drugs know that's the sale point.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, definitely.

But But there's no, also no fear of any kind of, you know, law enforcement or police being anywhere near that are coming in.

You know, I think the sense we got is that if the police are coming in here, they're coming in shooting.

There's no, there's no squad car that's going to roll around the corner.

It's like

this is CV territory.

Yeah, that's something that I like.

I've seen it a few times in my work over the years, but there I could really feel this like matter-of-fact vibe where they saw themselves as like equal in terms of like violence and firepower.

It wasn't like, well, you know, we'll run away and maybe we could, it was like, no, no, like if they come up here, we're shooting them.

You know what I mean?

And they had the guns.

They had, okay, they're not literally equal, but it felt to me as if they felt like, you know, it was one force against the other on equal footing.

I don't know about you, but do you get what I mean?

Definitely.

I think it kind of, it felt,

you know, they had the sense of like, yeah, opposing armies or something it did not feel like they were it did not feel like they were scared at all and the kind of i don't know that moment where the you know there's that bit of gunfire that goes off in the distance it sort of it felt so normalized to them i think hearing that you know they they they kind of leapt into action i think to go and check it out but it just felt like a lot of them didn't really bat an eyelid you know yeah It's sad how like

normal the violence was.

And I think just before the the gunfire went off and we had to like move i don't know if you remember but there was like all the lads were like showing us their guns like yo i got an uzi and like they had like a fucking kilo of drugs literally like wrapped in plastic at our feet and then if you look over there's just like two young boys maybe like eight nine years old just watching the whole thing man like even in their faces you could tell like they weren't I don't feel like they were scared.

I feel like they were just curious.

Yeah, you kind of see the kids because there were kids everywhere.

You know, there was no sort of like, oh, you know, shield the kids away from this.

It's like these, they're just like, they're like soldiers patrolling, you know, patrolling the streets or like, you know, armed police.

That's in a way, but they're, you know, kids in flip-flops with very expensive assault rifles in some cases.

You kind of got a sense of the pipeline of kids going into that world as well.

It didn't seem like, you know, they're kids necessarily not trying to be kept separate.

It felt like a kind of multi, you could see like almost the different generations in the gang all working together in that drug zero.

It felt like, you know, it's like, imagine your hometown and you and all your mates are in the gang, but then your dad and all his generation are in the same gang.

Yeah, do you know what?

I didn't even think about that.

And you're right, because I don't know if you remember, but like after the gunfire and like it chilled out, we went back to that like kind of dealer's spot and there was that young lad in the balaclava and he had a hat on and he was wearing all the camo and like, I think he wanted us to like, he was like, oh, I want to talk.

But then when he realized, like, we're not giving, he wanted money, do you remember?

And then we're like, we don't

pay any people to speak.

At that point, he was like, oh, I don't want to talk then.

But like, that guy was like, what, like 16, 17, maybe?

So young, so young.

I mean, him, yeah, he sticks out to me.

And also the kid.

You know, the one who we passed on the sort of CV checkpoint.

And that really stuck with me.

I think you've got this kid.

He's kind of,

you know, his day-to-day job is basically sitting over one of the most idyllic views probably of Rio.

And, you know, he's got a pistol in his back, you know, in his waistband and a walkie-talkie.

And he's kind of,

I don't know, he's, I guess, in his eye, you know, what's going through his head?

What's his sort of,

I don't know, how does he see his,

what's he thinking about his trajectory?

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The worry is that his future is death.

I mean, if you look at that lad that we were just talking about that wanted money, he's dead, he's been shot and killed like since like a couple months after we left.

Like, there was some kind of gang shootout, and he got shot by like another gang.

Uh, the guy calling himself fat sexy, he's been shot dead by the cops since, you know, like it's fucking crazy.

Yeah, and I think maybe you know, the fact that it was quiet while we were there would maybe make you think that it's ah, maybe it's kind of once in a while that something happens, but clearly, this you know, these guys are ready to fight at a moment's notice.

Yeah, I messaged um diogo like the guy from the the the looter livere gym and uh he was like sending me a voice note and there's just like gunfire in the background and he was like oh yeah there's like the police are launching an operation today like just blase

just like pure gunfire in the background like the gang and the and the fucking police shooting each other i was like wow like it's just crazy what did you make of him by the way diogo He was the most interesting person we met.

I mean, he kind of represented how complicated this whole story, I think, is.

Definitely.

You know, he's working, this guy who's lost his, his dad was a cop.

He's from the favela.

His dad was a cop.

You know, where does that then place him in the sort of,

you know, the kind of hierarchy had his dad not been killed, but he's,

you know, experienced losing his dad at a young age

and

could have gone, his life could have gone in any direction, but he's he's here working in this gang built sports center.

Yeah.

Trying to give kids a sort of positive outlet.

It's crazy, man.

And yeah, you just instantly got a sense of like a really good guy and someone who's

been through a lot, but has, you know, he's, he knows,

he knows what he's trying to do.

You know, you could see a guy with a kind of a bit of a mission.

Definitely, yeah.

You can see it like he, even though he didn't say it, I kind of felt this vibe of like, he's defiant against everyone like he will do what he's got to do you know um i don't know about you lou but i felt a little bit like when we were interviewing him he was kind of obviously he can't say anything negative about the gang but i felt he was a little bit uncomfortable maybe like it's like he kind of without saying it i feel like he was almost

kind of like yeah you know these people are hard to deal with but i deal with it you know what i mean like it didn't seem like he was like oh though they're great i got some kind of vibe vibe.

I don't know about you.

Yeah, exactly.

He's, you know, I think they are ultimately the law in this, in this, but, you know, in Fallout Fogatero.

And

you don't know what the repercussions are for speaking out against CV publicly.

I mean, I can imagine, I can imagine it's probably

not good.

Yeah,

he wasn't kind of singing the gang's praises.

I think he probably perhaps represented the views of a lot of, you know, people who maybe are from the favela but wouldn't mind living somewhere else or you know that they can't that it's cv is not a way of life for them yeah they live in the favela and and that's you know that's that's their reality and they're trying to make the best of it the one thing i didn't see though and maybe it was just that specific favela we're in i mean it's a very big favela is a lot going on but i didn't get the sense that people were necessarily like day-to-day scared.

Like, you know, little kids were like looking around, they didn't even flinch.

Like nobody even like every civilian was just like,

I didn't even feel like they were overcompensating.

They were just like, like, whatever.

You know what I mean?

I don't know.

Did you feel like anyone was actually scared there?

I mean, I'm sure they're scared of what could happen to them if they cross the gang.

We all know.

But I didn't get the feeling that everybody there was on tenderhooks.

I don't know about you.

No, I know, I didn't think that either.

And I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't sense that at all in Diogo at the gym.

No.

Yeah, it just, yeah, it's just like a kind of a kind of resignation.

This is life.

Yeah.

Much in any other, you know, if you live in a country with a government or,

you know,

a law you don't like, you know,

what can you do?

I think it seemed, yeah, it didn't seem, it didn't seem to be like a tension between CV and the people of the favela.

And I think maybe that speaks to how kind of ingrained they are there and how many people are involved in it in one way or another.

But it, yeah it's

it's they're not going anywhere no

no was there anything that really surprised you maybe you had like a

preconception or whatever that that surprised you or what you know it was interesting actually was um

i remember asking uh

the guy in our film who's known as player yeah um

And no, I wasn't expecting this answer, but I said, you know,

do you know people in these rival rival areas?

Because all the time we were there, they would point out, they'd say, that's CV over there, and that's our rivals.

You know, fuck them basically.

But I remember we were sat eating some food and said, you know, do you know, actually, know anyone's in these areas?

And he said, yeah, I went to school with quite a few of these guys.

And

we sort of, you know, if I see them in a neutral area, he said, you know, we'll shake hands.

But we're still rivals at war.

And again, it's so, it's a kind of absurd answer in a way, isn't it?

I totally forgot about that.

And that is actually such an interesting point.

Yeah, I forgot about that.

I remember him saying it.

I was thinking, what the fuck?

Like, if you see, he's like, yeah, if they're in our part of Havela, like, he's going to shoot them.

But if he sees them in a neutral area, they shake hands.

Like, that's sad, man.

Yeah, it's sad.

And it's,

you know, again, it's almost like

It's like they don't know anything else apart from these rivalries and this kind of constant state of war that it's kind of like, it's just a factor of life that, you know, yeah, we're friends, but he's also my enemy.

Yeah.

And he says something really good as well.

He was like, this is a

war that is going to go on until the end of time.

And like, after being there, I kind of believe that.

Like, I don't see

how you could possibly end it or solve it, you know, like I just, I'm sure, maybe, maybe I'm just, you know, like being a bit negative, but I'm sure

there's a line where you go past after a certain amount of time and insurgency and violence and government corruption and whatever.

I just cannot imagine any way to change what is going on there.

No, I mean, not without either the cooperation of the gang with the government, which would never happen.

Yeah.

There's just no trust there whatsoever.

or you know some kind of enormous operation on the police part to eradicate CV, which, you know, it's just never, it's never going to happen, is it?

You know, I think they, it's kind of like

the die is cast almost.

Like they just sort of, perhaps the government just thinks, well, it's not worth our time to try and change these areas.

I think so.

And I think as well, the fact that you just don't see any, like, there's no presence of the state there.

It would cost the government so much money to then start caring about these areas.

It's like another country almost.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's what it felt like.

It felt like you got, it's just, it's like a mini sort of state within a state.

And yes, they're all Brazilians and

they go into Rio, but it's, they come home and it's like they live in a different country and they sort of have to, they're just left to their own devices.

And I guess that's the sort of the question you're asking in the film is like,

is this because of CV or is this because of the absence or cv because the government's not here i don't know about that still what do you reckon oh it's so tight it's it's hard to say it's i mean

you'd have to you'd have to sort of wind the back wouldn't you i think it's clearly they've always been i don't think it's these favelas were never sort of

affluent areas or it's not like

a once working class area that has since declined like you might see in America or something like that.

I think it's these have always been the sort of poorest sections of society in Brazil.

And, you know,

were they ever really cared about?

I don't know.

I wouldn't say I'm an yeah.

No, I think that's a good point.

It's not like it's not like they can go back to a different way.

It was always like this, you know, it was just the people were like, right, get out of the way from the government.

We're like, go there and that's that.

It's crazy.

one thing that made me laugh actually

on a brighter note before we went out there um the kind of online idea is that everybody in cv territory wears nike and everybody in the other gang wears adidas right and i remember saying to you like louis bring nikes don't wear any adidas day one we get there the main guy is wearing adidas and uh I was like, what the fuck?

And at one point,

I got Chiago to ask one of them like about that.

And he was like, nah it's just some myth i was like wow like you go online and like everywhere says that that's how it is and maybe it was like 50 years ago i don't know but yeah it was so funny to see like loads of added ass and like online it's like yeah if you wear ad ass in the favela in the wrong gang you might get killed and then no one gave a about anything like that man it was very funny Well, you and me going in there in full night must have looked like a sort of throwback, probably.

Yeah, they must have thought, what are these idiot gringos doing?

And in my head, I was like, oh, like we'll really fit in.

We ain't going to get shot.

And then in reality, they're probably just like, what the fuck is wrong with these guys?

But yeah, man, I don't know.

I think if we've been wearing the wrong football shirts, I get the impression we might have been in trouble.

But yeah, yeah, they love the football there.

That was what was their flamenco?

Flamenco, yeah.

Yeah, really cool.

All right, Louis, thanks so much, man.

That's been really great.

I really wanted to just get your kind of perspective on it, man.

I appreciate it.

My pleasure.

It was an incredible experience.

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So as I said, the last time we were in the favelas was about a year ago.

What's been happening recently?

Well,

over the last three months, crime in Rio's favelas has flared up big time.

Clashes between drugs gangs and the police, as well as increasing pressure from the vigilante militias, are kicking things off in a very violent way.

One of the biggest events happened in June when Rio's civil police carried out a massive operation in the so-called Israel complex, an area controlled by the pure third command faction.

The raid followed a long investigation and led to almost a dozen arrests and the seizure of many rifles.

But it didn't come without the usual chaos.

Stray bullets hit a bus driver and a passenger in separate incidents downtown amidst a gunfight.

Video footage from this event showed average civilians diving for cover along busy roads out in the street in the middle of the day.

Just a few weeks earlier in May, another big raid took place in the Mare complex, another hotbed of gang activity.

This time the target was Chiago de Silva Folly, the alleged top boss of previously mentioned Pure Third Command.

He was killed in a shootout along with two other of his henchmen.

Folly had a massive rap sheet, nearly 230 charges and over a dozen active arrest warrants.

His death was a major moment in the state's ongoing effort to crack down on armed gangs, with one of the governors insisting that the government won't back down in the face of organised crime, even though many of them are involved with it.

Naturally, these raids brought serious disruption.

Roads were shut, schools were closed, and people living nearby were once again caught in the middle of the crossfire.

Interestingly though, whilst all this was going on, Brazil's Supreme Court has been looking into a case that restricts police from carrying out raids in favelas unless absolutely necessary.

It originally came into force during the pandemic, trying to stop the increasingly aggressive policing that often left many civilians dead and still does.

But even with these limits, limits police raids haven't exactly slowed down.

Over 4,600 were carried out between mid-2020 and early 2025 even with these proposed restrictions.

One recent operation in Villa Kennedy led to school closures and even health services being suspended because of the sheer level of violence in the streets.

Again, the civilians pay the price.

At the same time, residents are still living under the control of rival rival criminal groups.

One side, you've got the major gangs that we've spoken about in this series.

They enforce their own rules in many of the favelas.

And on the other, there are the militias made up of the ex-cops, maybe serving cops, military, even firemen.

These are acts like private armies offering up so-called protection while running their own extortion rackets.

In many cases, it's actually these groups, not the police, the government or the gangs, who are setting curfews and dictate who operates what businesses they decide who stays who goes they're the ones pushing the heavy taxes on a lot of the people there in the favelas

as you can imagine all of this takes a toll Schools are constantly shot when the violence breaks out, residents, especially children, are living with the constant risk of getting caught in the crossfire and studies show that nearly half of favela residents have heard gunfire recently.

Many are suffering mentally because of it with PTSD and various other undiagnosed issues.

Now remember this while you listen to the podcast.

For most people living there in the favelas the fights between the gangs, the militias and the police is not some abstract thing.

It's right outside their front door.

To really drive that home after listening to this chapter of the Away Days podcast, I want to leave you with a few more details on the Falek Fogotero massacre we touched on in an earlier episode.

Back in February 2019, the Falet Fogotero favela in central Rio was the site of one of the deadliest and most controversial police raids in recent memory.

Official reports said 13 people were killed, but some local accounts claimed up to 15.

The operation was carried out by Rio's elite military police units, Bope and the Shock Battalion, as part of a crackdown crackdown on drugs gangs in the area.

But what actually happened that day has been heavily disputed ever since.

Residents say the police didn't arrive in an active shootout.

According to many eyewitnesses, the victims had already surrendered or were unarmed when they were killed.

Some were reportedly executed at point blank range inside their houses.

Several bodies were shot in the back, suggesting they were fleeing or had already given up.

One particularly disturbing claim is that police dragged bodies away and dumped them in nearby hospitals.

A tactic that human rights organisations say is sometimes used to tamper with evidence and make it harder to investigate the actual cause of death.

Groups like Human Rights Watch and local watchdogs raised serious red flags about how the operation was handled.

Photos showed blood soaked mattresses, bullet holes in walls and signs that crime scenes have been disturbed.

There were accusations that the police messed with the locations of the bodies and gave false reports.

Families of the victims were left devastated and furious, saying they were poor young men, many of whom had no criminal records and were killed in cold blood.

Despite all of this, the investigation moved painfully slow.

For months nothing really happened.

Then, in 2020, Rio's public prosecutors officially recommended closing the case.

They argued that the the police had acted lawfully and were justified in their use of lethal force.

This decision was slammed by human rights groups who called it a whitewash and said it sent the message that police can kill in the favelas with no consequences.

To this day no officers have been charged or held accountable for the Falet Fogatero massacre.

The families are still fighting for justice but the case has pretty much vanished from the news.

For many people in Rios favelas, it was just another example of how the system turns a blind eye when poor black favela communities are on the receiving end of police violence.

Next week, it's the third and final chapter of Away Days Podcast.

We'll take you on the ground amidst the new generation of Japan's illegal street racers.

They like to go very, very fast.

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The Away Days Podcast is a production of H11 Studio for CoolZone Media.

Reporting, producing, writing, editing, and research by me, Jake Hanrahan.

Co-producing by Sophie Lichterman.

Music by Sam Black and in this episode Diamondstein.

Sound mix by Splicing Block.

Photography by Johnny Pickup and Louis Hollis.

Graphic design by Laura Adamson and Casey Highfield.

This is an iHeart Podcast.