Brazil has turned down a US request to classify two of its most powerful criminal gangs as terrorist organisations, according to Mario Sarrubo, Brazil’s national secretary of public security. The request was made during a meeting between US and Brazilian officials in Brasília on Tuesday.
The US officials sought the designation for the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV), which control territories in several Brazilian cities and are believed to have members in the US. The Trump administration has been linking its crackdown on immigration to the presence of Latin American gang members in US cities.
“We don’t have terrorist organisations here, we have criminal organisations that have infiltrated society,” Sarrubo said. Brazilian law only considers groups that violently clash with the government for religious or racial reasons to be terrorists, he added.
US officials said the FBI had reported that the PCC and CV have cells in 12 US states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Florida, Connecticut and Tennessee. They alleged the gangs trafficked guns and laundered money through Brazilians travelling to the US, with 113 people denied visas in 2024 due to organised crime links.
Earlier this year, the US designated several Latin American crime factions as terrorist organisations, including Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, El Salvador’s MS-13, Mexican cartels and Haitian gangs. The US embassy in Brasília did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
