The United States has officially designated Brazil's two largest criminal gangs, the First Capital Command (PCC) and the Red Command, as foreign terrorist organizations. The announcement, made on Thursday by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is widely viewed in Brazil as a significant setback for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who had strongly opposed the move, and a boost for his main challenger in the upcoming October presidential election, far-right Senator Flávio Bolsonaro.
Political Implications
Flávio Bolsonaro, chosen to run in place of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro—who is barred from running due to being under house arrest after a coup conviction—spent this week in the United States, meeting with President Donald Trump and Secretary Rubio. The senator had been at a low point in his campaign after revelations that he was caught on tape asking a banker accused of corruption for $26.8 million to fund a film about his father, causing a significant drop in his poll numbers.
Announcing the designation, Rubio wrote that the groups are "two of the most violent criminal organizations in Brazil. Their reach extends throughout our region and into our country."
Origins and Operations
Both gangs emerged inside Brazilian prisons, originally as a response to torture and abuse. They are now among the largest criminal organizations in Latin America, exporting cocaine produced in neighboring Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia primarily to the US and Europe, while expanding into other parts of the world. The Red Command is the older of the two, emerging in the 1970s from interactions between political prisoners jailed by the military dictatorship and common criminals in a Rio de Janeiro prison. The PCC was founded in the 1990s in a São Paulo prison, months after 111 prisoners were killed when police crushed a rebellion at another prison.
The two groups compete for control of drug distribution and trafficking routes but operate in distinct ways. While the Red Command has a more decentralized leadership structure and resembles the more overtly violent crime factions of Mexico and Colombia, the PCC functions almost like a corporation, with well-defined hierarchies and a low-profile, businesslike approach.
Reactions and Consequences
Lula had opposed the US proposal to classify the groups as terrorist organizations, describing the move as an affront to Brazilian sovereignty and arguing that the country already actively combats them. Just hours before the US announcement, Brazil's federal police launched a new operation targeting PCC infiltration into the country's financial sector. The president has not yet commented on the US decision.
Flávio Bolsonaro immediately celebrated the designation. "On a trip as a presidential candidate, we did more for Brazil and for the security of Brazilians than Lula," he said. Months earlier, commenting on US attacks against boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have killed 196 people, he said he felt "jealous" of those countries and suggested the US could do something similar in Rio's Guanabara Bay. "Wouldn't you like to spend a few months here helping us combat these terrorist organisations?" he wrote to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
The US decision had been widely anticipated for months but was not mentioned during Trump's meeting with Lula at the White House three weeks ago. Flávio's visit to the White House last Tuesday was not listed on the president's public schedule and, unlike Trump's meeting with Lula—during which the US president even praised the Brazilian leftist—was not mentioned by Trump even in a social media post.
There is still little clarity about the practical consequences of the designation. Analysts fear it could have financial repercussions even for innocent Brazilians, but the move is already being widely interpreted as another example of the growing pressure exerted by the White House across the region as part of its so-called "war on drugs." A report published this week by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project found that US pressure drove an 18% increase in clashes between security forces and armed groups across Latin America and the Caribbean in 2025.
