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The United States has designated Brazil’s two largest criminal organizations, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho, as terrorist groups.
Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, Primeiro Comando da Capital (the PCC) and Comando Vermelho (the “Red Command”) are Brazil’s two largest criminal organizations, both born inside prisons decades ago. The PCC started in a São Paulo lockup in 1993 as an inmate self-protection group after the Carandiru massacre, and grew into the country’s most organized network, running cocaine out of Bolivia and Peru to Europe and West Africa with a presence in every Brazilian state. The Red Command is older, founded in 1979 in a Rio de Janeiro prison by leftist political prisoners and it now controls a big chunk of Rio’s favelas. The two ran as allies for years before that fell apart around 2016, kicking off a nationwide turf war that’s still going.
What’s going on now: Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Thursday that the two gangs would first be labeled “Specially Designated Global Terrorists” and then formally classified as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” starting June 5, a more restrictive tier that puts them in the same legal category as groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Both labels freeze any of their US assets and let Washington sanction anyone who does business with the groups.
Rubio called them “two of the most violent criminal organizations in Brazil,” claiming their “influence and illicit networks extend far beyond Brazil’s borders, across our region and into our country.”
The designation landed just days after Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro (a close Trump ally) visited the White House and openly asked the administration to brand the gangs as terrorists. Bolsonaro quickly celebrated the move and took credit for it, while slamming his rival, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as soft on crime.
Notably, Bolsonaro is running in place of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is barred from October’s race while he serves 27 years in prison over his attempt to overturn his 2022 loss to Lula.
Lula, who had repeatedly tried to talk the administration out of the designation, argues organized crime is better fought by empowering police and going after gangs’ finances, while his chief foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim said that “international cooperation is welcome” but any “pretext for intervention is unacceptable.”
