State Department designates Brazil's Comando Vermelho and PCC as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, effective June 5

The U.S. State Department, in an announcement attributed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, designated two of Brazil's largest criminal organizations — Comando Vermelho (CV) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) — as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs) effective immediately, and announced intent to designate both as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) effective June 5, 2026. The SDGT designations were made under Executive Order 13224; the FTO designations under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The move flows from a January 2025 Trump executive order creating a process to designate drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations as FTOs/SDGTs, the same framework used for the February 2025 designations of Sinaloa, CJNG, Tren de Aragua and MS-13. State described CV and PCC as commanding thousands of members and orchestrating attacks on Brazilian police, officials and civilians, with illicit networks extending across Latin America and into the United States. For the COFFERS beat the financial bite is the key story: SDGT status blocks any CV/PCC assets under U.S. jurisdiction and bars U.S. persons from dealings, while FTO status from June 5 attaches severe criminal 'material support' liability under the Anti-Terrorism Act and layers OFAC sanctions plus Commerce export-control exposure.

Law firms (Jones Day, White & Case) flagged sharply elevated compliance, contract-review and de-risking obligations for multinationals operating in Brazil, where the two factions are deeply embedded in some local economies.