Raízes daninhas: Uma teorização sobre o crime organizado e seu enraizamento social na Amazônia.

Abstract

This study theorizes how the social embeddedness of organized crime produces environmental harm by capturing and reordering local power structures. A documentary and comparative design analyzes official and academic sources triangulated with embeddedness theory. Results indicate that deforestation, illegal gold mining, and illegal logging are sustained by clandestine financial flows, documentary fraud, and co-optation of agents, which insulate illegal supply chains, weaken oversight, and normalize predatory practices. By providing income, credit, and services, criminal groups build community legitimacy, erase boundaries between licit and illicit spheres, and reconfigure territorial governance, yielding violence against defenders, regulatory capture, and local economic dependency. It concludes that repression alone is insufficient; integrating financial intelligence, supply-chain traceability, and socioenvironmental development policies is required.