Complexo do Alemão (Portuguese: [kõˈplɛksu dwɐleˈmɐ̃w], German's Complex) is a group of favelas (low-income historically informal neighborhoods) in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

[3] On June 27, 2007, a few days before the Live Earth concert in Copacabana and the opening ceremony of the XV Pan American Games, Complexo do Alemão was the scene of a huge operation led by the Military Police against the gang that controlled the area.

)[6][7] On November 25, 2010, the Special Ops Battalion (BOPE) together with the Brazilian Navy, invaded the Vila Cruzeiro favela, in Rio de Janeiro.

The operation, which was part of the 2010 Rio de Janeiro Security Crisis, was the State responding to drug traffickers setting buses and other vehicles on fire using combustible fuels.

The coordinated attack was in retaliation for the government setting up UPPs, Unidade de Policia pacificadora, Pacifying Police units within various favelas around Rio.

This led to the expulsion of assorted armed drug traffickers, and tightened pressure upon criminal leaders in those favelas which continued outside the control of the State and its laws, such as the Complexo do Alemão.

During the operation, the majority of the phone calls to the number set up by Rio's government to anonymously report criminal activity (known as "Disque Denúncia") were from residents living within the Complexo.

State security forces also noticed during this period that local residents would quietly signal with subtle body gestures to assist police in their hunt for drugs and weapons.

One of which, the "Corrida Desafio da Paz" was organized by the NGO AfroReggae in May 2012, and featured the State Security Chief, José Mariano Beltrame as one of the runners who completed the 5 km run.

[12] On July 23, 2012, the first police officer to die in a favela, while under UPP administration, was shot and killed by criminals within the Nova Brasília area of the Complexo do Alemão.

At the time of the shooting, the female officer, 30-year-old Fabiana Aparecida de Souza, who had only been on the force a few months, was at a small UPP station within the favela, when the building was shot at by 12 assailants and she was hit in the abdomen by a rifle bullet.