The Trump Administration formally designated the PCC and Comando Vermelho as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The move aims to target the gangs' global supply chains, international funding, and extensive money-laundering operations.
Both the PCC and CV operate deep, sophisticated illicit networks for drug trafficking and money laundering that stretch into Europe—especially Portugal and Spain—and the United States.
There are suspicions that these groups may have been supporting some Iberian mainstream media and political parties who no longer hide their hostility to the state of Israel and the relevant Jewish communities. In addition, a word comes up in this game: Hezbollah.
In an investigation that brought together the Brazilian Federal Police and the Portuguese Judiciary Police, it was determined that the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV) have established strong connections with the terrorist group Hezbollah. A key figure in leading these investigations was the director of the Portuguese Judicial Police, Gil Rodrigues de Carvalho, a profound scholar of the threats hanging over Portugal, the USA, Israel, and the Jewish world
Documents have indicated that Hezbollah-linked traffickers operating in the Tri-Border Area (the convergence of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay) have used their networks to help Brazilian gangs to spread its power around the globe.
The Lula government – a known ally of the Iberian socialists – may also suffer consequences, following what happened with Maduro in Venezuela. In exchange for access to these international arms pipelines, PCC and CV elements have historically provided protection for operatives of Lebanese origin detained in Brazil and have facilitated transnational drug trafficking routes.
Driven in part by this ongoing convergence between transnational organized crime and terrorism, the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute has studied the issue, and the U.S. Department of State officially classified both the PCC and CV as foreign terrorist organizations. This decision places the Brazilian factions on the same U.S. list of designated groups as Hezbollah and Hamas.
The primary focus of gang wealth is legitimizing tens of billions of reais through diverse businesses, such as international arms smuggling, drug trafficking, and money laundering.
How the individual and collective Jew has been harmed by all this, especially in Iberia, where in recent years governments and media have boldly attacked Jewish interests, is something that will now be easier to ascertain through American and Israeli intelligence and investigation channels.
