  The city of Rio de Janeiro is one of the biggest cities in Brazil. Drug gangs
and paramilitary groups called \textit{mil\'icias} control some regions of the
city where the government is not present, specially in the slums. Due to the
characteristics of such two distinct groups, it was observed that the evolution
of COVID-19 is different in those two regions, in comparison with the regions
controlled by the government. In order to understand qualitatively those
observations, we divided the city in three regions controlled by the
government, by the drug gangs and by the \textit{mil\'icias}, respectively, and
we consider a SIRD-like epidemic model where the three regions are coupled.
Considering different levels of exposure, the model is capable to reproduce
qualitatively the distinct evolution of the COVID-19 disease in the three
regions, suggesting that the organized crime shapes the COVID-19 evolution in
the city of Rio de Janeiro. This case study suggests that the model can be used
in general for any metropolitan region with groups of people that can be
categorized by their level of exposure.
