He United States government analyzes designate as foreign terrorist organizations to the two largest criminal factions in Brazilhe First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command (CV), a measure that would expand the security strategy promoted by the Donald Trump administration against drug trafficking networks in the Western Hemisphere.
According to several Brazilian media, a spokesman for the State Department He stated that Washington considers the PCC and the CV as “significant threats to regional security” due to his participation in drug trafficking, violence and transnational crime.
You may also be interested in: Trump announces destruction of 10 Iranian minelayer vessels in the Strait of Hormuz
According to reports, US diplomacy avoided specifying a date for a final decision and noted that the process also involves other federal agencies, including the Treasury Department.
The discussion is framed in the strategy of the White House to toughen its hemispheric security policy. At the beginning of his mandate, Donald Trump included in the list of terrorist organizations to several criminal groups in Latin America, including Mexican cartels such as Sinaloa, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Northeast Cartel and La Nueva Familia Michoacanaamong others. It also adopted similar measures against criminal structures in Colombia, El Salvador, Venezuela and Haiti.
The U.S. has officially declared the following as Foreign Terrorist Organizations: Tren de Aragua, MS-13, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the United Cartels, the Gulf Cartel, the Northeast Cartel, and the Michoacán Family. pic.twitter.com/cgcw9juyEl
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 19, 2025
Tension in Brazil
According to Brazilian media reports, advisors Trump they maintain that USA does not require government endorsement Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to classify as terrorists to transnational criminal organizations.
The government of Lula fears that this designation could serve asor legal basis for eventual extraterritorial military operations of the United States under the argument of fighting drug trafficking. Brazilian authorities have defended that the country faces criminal organizations – not terrorists – and have insisted that the response must focus on police cooperation and financial investigation.
Lula government reacts to the US idea of classifying the PCC and CV factions as terrorists
Chancellor Mauro Vieira discussed the topic with the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in a conversation about Lula’s visit to Washington.
Check it out: https://t.co/6jOySQ2QwD pic.twitter.com/bn5DqJtnV7
— RT Brasil (@rtnoticias_br) March 9, 2026
The tension also occurs on the eve of a eventual meeting between Trump and Lulastill without a confirmed date, and a few days after the summit against the cartels held in Doral, Miami, where Washington summoned 16 countries of the continentbut left out Mexico, Brazil and Colombia.
In that forum, Trump affirmed that Mexico is the “epicenter of cartel violence” in the region and maintained that drug trafficking organizations must be confronted with “lethal military force,” a statement that raised the tone of his regional narrative.
Who are the PCC and the CV?
According to the specialized organization Insight Crime, the First Command of the Capital is the largest and most sophisticated criminal network in Brazil. It emerged in 1993 in the Taubaté prison, in the state of São Paulo, after the Carandiru massacre of 1992, in which more than 100 inmates died.
What started as a prison organization It evolved into a criminal structure with a presence throughout Brazil, links in various Latin American countries and connections with criminal networks in Europe.
The organization based in Washington points out that the CCP He consolidated his power through a flexible structure based on regional leadership and cells with extensive operational autonomy. In addition to drug trafficking, the group has diversified its activities into money laundering, arms trafficking, high-impact robberies and cybercrimes.
Its expansion led it to operate in strategic points of cocaine routessuch as Paraguay and Bolivia, and to establish links with foreign mafias.
Comando Vermelho, the oldest criminal faction in Brazil
He Red Commandfor its part, is the oldest criminal faction in Brazil. It emerged in the 1970s in a prison in Rio de Janeiro, during the military dictatorship, from the coexistence between common criminals and political prisoners.
With the cocaine trafficking boom in the 1980sthe group became one of the most influential criminal organizations in the country and took root in the favelas of Rio, where for decades it combined territorial control, illegal economies and a parallel form of authority.
You may also be interested in: Pentagon says this Tuesday will be the ‘most intense’ day of attacks against Iran
Although it retains its stronghold in Rio de Janeiro, the CV has also expanded to the north of Brazil and towards border areas with Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia and Peru. His dispute with the PCC, open since 2016, has become one of the main drivers of the prison and territorial violence in Brazil during the last decade.
Leave a Reply