Brazil Rejects US Request To Set Two Big Gangs As Terrorist Organizations

Illustration of Brazilian police with complete weapons. (Wikimedia Commons/T04nia Rögo/Agmencia Brasil)

JAKARTA - The Brazilian government rejected a request by the United States State Department to designate two major criminal gangs believed by officials to have members in the United States as terrorist organizations, Mario Sarrubo, Brazil's national secretary of public security, told Reuters on Wednesday.

He said the request was filed on Tuesday during a meeting between David Gamble, who led the sanctions strategy for the US State Department, six other officials from the administration of President Donald Trump, and eight Brazilian officials in Brasilia.

"We don't have a terrorist organization here, we have a criminal organization that has infiltrated the public," Sarrubo, who was not present at the meeting.

However, Brazilian law, he added, only considers organizations that strongly clash with the government for religious or racial reasons as terrorists.

At a meeting in Brasilia, US officials told their counterparts from Brazil that their request was part of efforts to deal with immigration and criminal gangs with transnational presence, saying they were a priority for the Trump administration, said one of the sources present.

It is known that President Trump has tried to link his aggressive crackdown on immigration to the presence of members of a Latin American criminal gang in US cities.

Gamble itself is concerned about the Primeiro Comando da Capital gang, known as PCC, and Comando Vermelho, known as CV, which controls areas in several Brazilian cities.

Earlier this year, the US Government designated several drug cartels as terrorist organizations, including Trend de Aragua from Venezuela and MS13 from El Salvador.

In recent weeks, President Trump's administration has deported hundreds of Latin American immigrants, on charges they are gang members, although there is no solid evidence of their criminal ties.

Separately, US officials said determining terrorists could help governments impose sanctions, increase resources and target criminal supply chains, the same source added.

According to this source, US officials said the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had reported PCC and Comando Vermelho had cells in 12 US states, especially Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Florida, Connecticut and Tennessee.

The report, the source added, accused the gangs of trading firearms and laundering money through Brazilians traveling to the US, adding 113 people were denied their visas to enter the country because they had ties to organized crimes in 2024 alone.

In March, the US Prosecutor's Office charged 18 Brazilians with trafficking several types of firearms in the US. Some of these illegal activities, the government said, had ties to PCC, and many Brazilians were illegally charged with being in the US.

On Monday, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro's office, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, said he met with Trump Organization officials to submit files that he said contained intelligence information linking PCC and CV to terrorist acts.