By Hélio de Carvalho Freitas Filho & Cleiber Levy G. Brasilino
This article analyzes the transformation of transnational property crime by comparing two distinct paradigms: the European model of technical stealth exemplified by the theft in Gelsenkirchen (Germany), and the Brazilian methodology of force saturation known as “City Domination.” Using the German case, recent incidents in France [1], and the work Transnational War as empirical bases, the study investigates the convergence between criminological fiction and operational reality. It posits that the expansion of Brazilian factions within the European prison system acts as a catalyst for importing hybrid warfare tactics, exposing the vulnerability of the micro-territorial sovereignty of European states.
The Technical Inflection of Contemporary Organized Crime
Contemporary organized crime is undergoing a technical, logistical, and strategic inflection. In Europe, historically, property crimes of high technical sophistication and low visibility have predominated, whereas in Brazil, over recent decades, a criminal modality of near-insurgent character — known as City Domination — has consolidated. This article proposes a comparative analysis between the fictional representation of this phenomenon in the novel Transnational War and real recent events on European soil. It argues that, although different in immediate intent (territorial insurgency vs. property subtraction), these phenomena share convergent criminal logic based on extreme professionalization, militarized planning, and exploitation of institutional vulnerabilities.
However, reducing this phenomenon to the category of “property crime” is an analytical error that undermines security diagnosis. From the perspective of Police Sciences, what we observe transcends mere asset subtraction; it is, essentially, the temporary erosion of micro-territorial sovereignty. Unlike the classical stealth robbery, which operates in the shadows to evade the force of the State, the City Domination [2] modus operandi seeks to neutralize the State’s response capacity within a defined geographic perimeter and for a determined temporal lapse. During execution of such criminal maneuvers, the legitimate monopoly of violence is suspended, and the territory becomes governed by the criminal organization’s warlike force.
Europe no longer faces only adept bank robbers but criminal insurgents who challenge the rule of public order through area interdiction tactics.
The Gelsenkirchen Paradigm and “Criminal Elegance”
The recent haul at a bank in Gelsenkirchen, western Germany — where more than 3,000 safety deposit boxes were violated, resulting in an estimated loss of €30 million — has sparked an urgent debate on public safety in the Old Continent. The crime followed the classic European banditry blueprint: silent, technical, and focused on structural failure.
In that instance, criminals accessed an underground vault of a banking institution and breached thousands of individual safes using industrial-grade precision machinery, such as professional drills and cutting equipment. The defining characteristic of the operation was absolute discretion: nighttime action, absence of armed confrontation, silent alarm neutralization, and exploitation of structural failures. The crime occurred without any attempt at territorial control or direct intimidation of the State, evidencing a model based on invisibility and post-fact investigative response.
This action is not isolated. What links the Gelsenkirchen theft to recent historical incidents at the Louvre Museum or the “phantom” theft of the French Crown Jewels in October 2025 is an aversion to confrontation. In the German episode, robbers used high-precision industrial drills to access the vault. There were no hostages, no shots fired, and the police only realized the event’s magnitude once the perpetrators were already long gone.
Security experts warn that this “criminal elegance” — characterized by refined technique and low violence signature — may be short-lived. While effective for asset subtraction, it becomes obsolete in the face of new criminal networks’ need to demonstrate power.
The Livorno Case and Tactical Escalation
If Gelsenkirchen represents the “old school,” the armored car robbery in Livorno (Italy) in mid-2025 signals the transition. Unlike the German discreet style, the Italian action involved roadblocks and the display of long-arm weaponry, though still without the massive coordination typical of the Brazilian model. Although officially treated as organized property crime, the modus operandi exhibits elements previously uncommon in Europe: highway explosions, high tactical coordination, armed intimidation, and rapid environmental neutralization. The episode reinforces the hypothesis that techniques once restricted to Latin American contexts are beginning to be assimilated by European groups, possibly through transnational connections established within prison environments or global criminal networks.
City Domination: From Fiction to Tactical Reality
In the novel Transnational War, the concept of City Domination is transposed into the European context, especially in Switzerland. The narrative describes decentralized attacks, sabotage of critical infrastructure, and coordinated subterranean actions aimed at paralyzing the State and collapsing institutional confidence.
While fictional, the work functions as a criminological warning by anticipating the possibility of importing Brazilian methods into European urban environments, adapted to their specific vulnerabilities.
In Brazil, City Domination manifests as surface urban warfare. It involves simultaneous sieges of police battalions, use of explosives to breach physical structures, military-grade weaponry (including assault rifles and anti-aircraft machine guns), and use of hostages as human shields. Unlike the European model, the intent is not only property subversion but temporary neutralization of the local State, imposing tactical, psychological, and symbolic superiority.
PCC Expansion and Criminal Convergence in Europe
An emerging and central factor in understanding this risk is the expansion of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) beyond Latin America, especially through its presence in European prison systems. Originally focused on international drug trafficking and money laundering, the PCC has established itself as a transnational organization capable of exporting criminal doctrine, operational methods, and organizational culture.
Within European prisons, this faction acts as a hub of criminal knowledge, connecting local criminals, often specialized in lower-scale property offenses, to advanced Brazilian tactical methods. This process creates a dangerous symbiosis: on one side, Europeans with territorial knowledge; on the other, operatives experienced in armed saturation and extreme logistical coordination.
This symbiosis does not necessarily require a hierarchical merger between South American factions and European mafias. Contemporary structures operate in flexible, diffuse networks. The prison system functions as the nerve hub of this network: it is in incarceration that criminal technology exchange occurs.
The PCC does not need to directly commit the robbery in Germany; it operates as a “tactical consultant,” exporting the force saturation doctrine and explosive handling know-how to local groups (such as the Mocro Mafia or Balkan clans) in exchange for logistical facilitation in narcotics flows. This is a criminal joint venture where Brazilian confrontation know-how becomes a valuable commodity in the European criminal market.
Vulnerability Analysis: Europe’s Response Deficit
Transposing the City Domination model to the European theater reveals critical asymmetries in defense and response capacities, exposing the structural fragility of the State against highly specialized crime. Comparative analysis highlights three crisis vectors:
- Response Time and Centralized Force
In Brazil, shock battalions and special operations forces maintain a constant and decentralized state of combat readiness. In Europe, elite units like GSG9 (Germany) or GIGN (France) operate under highly centralized models that demand significant time to deploy (call-out basis). The City Domination strategy focuses on isolating the target municipality and saturating access routes. Under simultaneous and concentric attacks, Europe’s elite response can exceed the temporal window of the crime, allowing criminals to escape before reinforcements arrive. - Urban Morphology Fragility
Small and medium-sized European cities, with narrow streets, medieval bridges, and dense historical architecture, become indefensible against containment tactics. Brazilian techniques like setting barricades of fire can completely immobilize city logistics. European bureaucratic protocols impede conventional vehicle movement, effectively ceding perimeter control to criminals. - The Fallacy of Passive Technology
The Gelsenkirchen case exposes the collapse of Europe’s security model based on passive technology — motion sensors, high-resolution cameras, and silent alarms are effective against stealth, but irrelevant against brute force. The City Domination doctrine replaces attempts to bypass systems with their physical destruction. Use of industrial explosives and military-grade firearms renders conventional architectural fortification obsolete.
Human Factor and Information Warfare
Europe’s greatest vulnerability may not be technological, but psychological. European police doctrine was shaped to confront a “rational” criminal profile that consistently avoided direct confrontation to minimize sentencing risk. The City Domination paradigm introduces an actor with high combat willingness. For forces trained in de-escalation and negotiation logic, facing an enemy disposed toward “total warfare” could immediately paralyze operations.
Concluding Considerations
The silent theft in Gelsenkirchen, the overt attack in Livorno, and the narrative of Transnational War represent different stages of the same criminal evolution. The Gelsenkirchen theft was a financial alarm — but if Brazilian terror technology definitively crosses the ocean, the next alarm will be written in blood.
The transition from the “New Cangaço” stage (punctual attacks) to the imminent City Domination threat (metropolis control) demands that European police abandon doctrinal arrogance. Recognizing that their States’ micro-territorial sovereignty is threatened is the first step. The response does not lie in post-fact investigation, but in adopting asymmetrical response capabilities and anticipatory intelligence — integrating the hard lessons learned in blood by Brazilian police. Unless Europe “tropicalizes” its operational response, it could see its cities dominated by violence once believed confined to history books.
[1] With specific regard to the events in France (Louvre/Crown Jewels), the precise legal classification remains undefined due to the lack of access to the official incident records (police report). Based strictly on discrepancies among local news reports, a technical imprecision is observed: while the German media consistently treats the French case as theft, French journalistic sources classify the incident in Paris as robbery, which presupposes the use of violence or serious threat—an element that cannot be verified without examination of the case files.
[2] The concept of City Domination was developed by Ricardo Matias Rodrigues, author of the article From the New Cangaço to City Domination (Military Justice Observatory, 2018). Ricardo Matias Rodrigues holds a bachelor’s degree in Economic Sciences, an Executive MBA in Crisis Management, and is a specialist in Police Sciences, Competitive Intelligence, and Corporate Counterintelligence. He serves as a postgraduate lecturer at the Federal Judiciary School of Paraná (ESMAFE) and is a co-author of the book Alpha Bravo Brasil: Violent Crimes against Property.
About the Authors:
Hélio de Carvalho Freitas Filho holds bachelor’s degrees in Law and Business Administration. He is a specialist in Competitive Intelligence and Corporate Counterintelligence and is a co-author of the book Alpha Bravo Brasil: Violent Crimes against Property.
Cleiber Levy G. Brasilino holds a PhD in Strategic Management, Police Sciences, and Preventive Public Security. He is a specialist in Communication, Public Management, Psychology, Neurolinguistics, Strategic Intelligence, and Law. He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Police of the state of Tocantins. He is the author of the works Information Warfare in Public Security, Fundamentals of Public Communication for Security Institutions, and Storytelling Manual for the Public Sector.
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