MIAMI — The moment the Brazilian government has dreaded has arrived. The Trump administration in Washington has officially designated Brazil’s two most powerful criminal organizations — the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho (CV) — as Specially Designated Global Terrorists on Thursday, with a formal Foreign Terrorist Organization classification set to take effect on June 5.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the designations, describing both groups as among the most dangerous criminal organizations in South America.
“CV and PCC are two of the most violent criminal organizations in Brazil,” Rubio said in a State Department statement. “Together, they command thousands of members and have orchestrated brutal attacks against Brazilian police officers, public officials, and civilians. Their influence and illicit networks extend far beyond Brazil's borders, across our region and into our country.”
A Political Trigger
The timing of the announcement carries unmistakable political weight. The designations came one day after Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro — son of former President Jair Bolsonaro and a leading candidate in Brazil’s October presidential election — publicly confirmed he had personally requested the designations during a recent meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.
“I went... to emphatically ask President Trump to designate the PCC and the Red Command as foreign terrorist organizations as soon as possible,” Flávio Bolsonaro said.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who faces Bolsonaro in the October contest, has said he will interpret the U.S. move as direct interference in Brazil’s electoral process.
The Lula government had previously sought to block the designations, in part because the FTO label could open a pathway for U.S. military action on Brazilian soil and expose Brazilian financial institutions to sanctions if they are found to have inadvertently processed funds tied to either organization.
Washington’s Justification
The Trump administration has pointed to the group’s reach inside the United States as the basis for the designations. According to U.S. officials, the FBI has reported that PCC and CV maintain cells in at least 12 states, including Florida, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Tennessee, where members have engaged in gun trafficking and money laundering.
In March, the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged 18 Brazilians with firearms trafficking offenses, with several charges carrying ties to the PCC.
U.S. officials also noted that 113 people were denied visas to enter the United States in 2024 alone due to connections to organized crime in Brazil. The designations are part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to apply terrorist labels to criminal organizations across Latin America.
Earlier this year, the administration designated eight Mexican and Venezuelan cartels, including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel. In November 2025, the State Department designated Venezuela's Cartel de los Soles — a network of regime-linked military officials — as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, a move that drew its own controversy over whether the group constitutes a formal cartel at all.
What the Designation Means
An FTO designation under U.S. law criminalizes material support for the named organization, bars affiliated individuals from entering the United States, and enables U.S. authorities to freeze assets and pursue sanctions against financial networks linked to the groups. The formal classification for PCC and CV takes effect June 5.
For Brazil, the practical and diplomatic consequences could be significant. Brazilian banks and financial institutions with any exposure to PCC or CV-linked transactions face potential U.S. sanctions risk. And the designation gives Washington legal and political tools to pressure Brasília on security cooperation ahead of one of the most consequential elections in the country's recent history.
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Sociedad Media is an independent digital news publication covering the latest developments in politics & culture in Latin American. Our reporting follows strict impartiality standards. We do not editorialize on U.S. immigration policy or the geopolitical strategies of any administration, and we will continue to monitor Brazil’s upcoming presidential election in October.
