Major floods in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul led to record marijuana seizures there as criminal groups seeking to exploit the chaos and up their trafficking activities lost valuable product to an uptick in drug interdictions due to a heightened police and military presence. 

In May, floods killed over a hundred people and caused widespread damage to property and infrastructure in Rio Grande do Sul. But authorities nevertheless seized some 31.2 tons of the drug in and heading to the state, close to what police seized nationwide in the first half of May 2023. 

On May 29, federal agents reported a 26-ton seizure from a truck that was transporting corn from the central state of Mato Grosso do Sul to Rio Grande do Sul. A few days before, Brazilian police forces found 4 more tons of marijuana in the bordering state of Parana, inside a food donation truck headed to the epicenter of the catastrophe. Finally, police confiscated 551 kilograms of the drug in a car, which was being moved from the city of Osório to the metropolitan area of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul’s capital. 

SEE ALSO: Is Brazil’s PCC Trying to Take Over Paraguay’s Marijuana Business?

Large seizures have continued in June. On June 3, Federal Police found another five tons of marijuana hidden in a truck in northern Rio Grande do Sul that was also heading to Porto Alegre.

InSight Crime Analysis

The multiple marijuana finds come alongside the increased security presence that was sent to deal with the flooding, suggesting a link between the two events. 

Criminal groups may have assumed that they could easily move marijuana into Rio Grande do Sul because authorities would give less scrutiny to vehicles heading toward the flood damage to avoid holding up necessary disaster aid. But instead, the deployment of nearly 1,000 security forces to handle the flood fallout resulted in a rise in drug interdictions, Rodrigo Azevedo, a member of the Brazilian Security Forum, told InSight Crime. 

“Maybe they thought there was an opportunity,” Azevedo said. “But that wasn’t confirmed.”

The consolidation of criminal groups in southern Brazil, such as the Manos and Bullet in the Face (Bala na Cara), has boosted the flow of marijuana from Paraguay to meet local demand and contributed to an upward trend in drug seizures over the past 10 years.

The Manos and Bullet in the Face have established a presence mainly in Porto Alegre and the city’s metropolitan region. Rio Grande do Sul is also home to another 13 criminal organizations that are distributed throughout the territory. 

Unlike northern Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul is not a part of international drug trafficking routes, according to officials and independent experts. 

SEE ALSO: How Brazil’s Port of Santos Became Cocaine’s World Trade Center

“Trafficking here is for consumption, maybe high levels of consumption, but it’s not a state through which drugs destined for international destinations like Europe are trafficked,” Azevedo said.

As a result, Brazil’s biggest criminal groups such as the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) and the Red Command (Comando Vermelho), have shown little interest in controlling the state, leaving local drug trafficking in the hands of the Manos and Bullet in the Face. While those gangs traffic marijuana from Paraguay into the state, they do not have other strong transnational connections.