The Brazilian government has rejected a request from the US State Department to designate two major criminal gangs as terrorist organizations, according to Mario Sarrubo, Brazil National Secretary for Public Security.
Sarrubo said that the request was made Tuesday at a meeting between us and Brazilian officials in Brasília.
US officials were concerned about gangs Primeiro Comando da Capital, known as PCCAnd Comando Vermelho, known as CV, which controls the territories in several Brazilian cities and would have members in the United States.
Trump tried to link his aggressive repression against immigration to the presence of Latin American criminal gang members in American cities. Earlier this year, the US government has appointed several criminal factions as terrorist organizations, Including Tren of Aragua from Venezuela and MS-13 of Salvador, as well as Mexican cartels and Haitian gangs.
“We have no terrorist organizations here, we have criminal organizations that have infiltrated the company,” said Sarrubo. But Brazilian law, he added, only considers organizations that come up against the government for religious or racial reasons to be terrorists.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has expelled hundreds of immigrants from Latin America, alleging that they were gang members, although it has presented little evidence of their criminal ties.
During the meeting in Brasília, US officials informed their Brazilian counterparts that their request was part of an effort to fight immigration and criminal gangs with a transnational presence, saying that they were priorities for the Trump administration, said a source that was present.
US officials said a terrorist designation could help the government apply sanctions, increase resources and target criminal supply chains, added the same source.
According to this source, US officials said the FBI had pointed out that CCC and Comando Vermelho had cells in 12 American states, mainly Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Florida, Connecticut and Tennessee.
These reports, added the source, alleged that the gangs have tracked down firearms and bleached money through the Brazilians who went to the United States, adding that 113 people were denied visas to enter the country due to links with the crime organized in only 2024.
On Monday, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro’s office, son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, said that he had met Trump organization officials to deliver a file that, he said, included information from the PCC and the CV to terrorist acts.
The United States Embassy in Brasília did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
