SAO PAULO — The U.S. State Department designated two Brazilian criminal groups, First Command of the Capital (PCC) and Red Command (CV), as foreign terrorist organizations on Thursday. The move subjects both organizations to sanctions that freeze U.S.-based assets and criminalize support for their activities.

PCC was founded in São Paulo state prisons and Red Command in Rio de Janeiro state prisons. Both groups have since spread throughout Brazil and likely have more than 50,000 members combined, according to experts.

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have called for the U.S. designation of PCC and CV as foreign terrorist organizations. Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro said he lobbied U.S. President Donald Trump to add the groups to the list. The Trump administration previously used the strategy of designating Latin American cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government opposes the U.S. designation. Lula said the first phase of a recent Brazilian operation against organized crime is evidence that Brazil is fighting criminal organizations on its own terms. That operation, launched in August, targeted fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion linked to criminal gangs.

Last year, authorities uncovered a PCC-linked network that infiltrated parts of Brazil’s fuel industry and used money laundering schemes tied to the financial sector. At that time, they seized 1.2 billion reais (about $220 million) in assets. Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service said authorities discovered six fintech companies acting as criminal parallel banks that processed 26 billion reais ($5 billion) between 2022 and 2025.

“Armed confrontation with young drug traffickers from the outskirts is ineffective and fails to deal with the complexity of money laundering and its links to financial crime,” said Luis Flavio Sapori, a sociologist and public safety expert at Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais. He added, “It will depend far more on the ability of either the Lula government or the Bolsonaro-aligned opposition to persuade the U.S. administration.”

Public security is expected to be a wedge issue in Brazil’s October presidential elections, in which both Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro have said they will run.