Investing In A Rush Or Thinking Strategically? Red Queen Syndrome And Intelligence In Confronting Organized Crime In The Amazon

Abstract

This article analyzes the fight against organized crime in the State of Amazonas through the metaphor of Marcos Rolim’s Red Queen Syndrome, according to which public security “runs as fast as it can just to stay in the same place.” It starts from the diagnosis that Amazonas operates as a logistical hub for drug trafficking in the Amazon, connecting Andean cocaine production to national and international markets along the Solimões river corridor, while the Military Police of Amazonas works with staffing levels below the ideal threshold projected for the state’s territorial and criminal reality. The study adopts a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive approach, based on bibliographical and documentary research on organized crime, criminal factions, police intelligence, financial intelligence and decapitalization, aligned with the guidelines of the National Doctrine of Public Security Intelligence (DNISP), as well as on the analysis of institutional documents and the case study of Operation Collapsus in the state of Tocantins. It argues that, in this context of logistical advantage for criminal factions and structural personnel deficit, merely intensifying overt police operations tends to reproduce the Red Queen dynamics, generating high costs and limited structural impact. It concludes that prioritizing investments in intelligence, especially in its financial dimension guided by the follow the money logic, is a strategic condition to shift the axis of confrontation, weaken the business model of criminal organizations and create real asymmetries in favor of the State in the Amazonian context.