WASHINGTON, DC (By Treasury, 30.Jul.2025, Words: 510) — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Alexandre de Moraes (de Moraes), who has used his position to authorize arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppress freedom of expression.
“Alexandre de Moraes has taken it upon himself to be judge and jury in an unlawful witch hunt against U.S. and Brazilian citizens and companies,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “De Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions—including against former President Jair Bolsonaro. Today’s action makes clear that Treasury will continue to hold accountable those who threaten U.S. interests and the freedoms of our citizens.”
RELATED ENERGY ANALYTICS INSTITUTE (EAI): El Cártel de los Soles: De red de cocaína a organización terrorista
La designación ocurrió días después de un intercambio de prisioneros entre EEUU y Venezuela, y de informes sobre negociaciones de inteligencia que involucraban al exjefe de inteligencia venezolano Hugo Carvajal (U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2025; Energy Analytics Institute, 2025).
Today’s action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13818, which builds upon and implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse around the world. Today’s action follows the U.S. Department of State’s revocation of de Moraes’s visa and those of his immediate family members on July 18, 2025, for their complicity in aiding and abetting de Moraes’ unlawful censorship campaign against U.S. persons on U.S. soil.
RELATED: Maduro: the cradle of the liberators of the Americas “does not depend on anything or anyone”
RELATED: Brazil’s Petrobras reports production of 2.5 MMboe/d in 2Q:25 [pdf download]
DE MORAES’ ABUSIVE JUDICIAL OVERREACH
De Moraes was appointed to the STF in 2017. Since that time, de Moraes has become one of Brazil’s most powerful individuals, wielding immense authority through his oversight of expansive STF investigations. De Moraes has investigated, prosecuted, and suppressed those who have engaged in speech that is protected under the U.S. Constitution, repeatedly subjecting victims to long preventive detentions without bringing charges. Through his actions as an STF justice, de Moraes has undermined Brazilians’ and Americans’ rights to freedom of expression. In one notable instance, de Moraes arbitrarily detained a journalist for over a year in retaliation for exercising freedom of expression.
RELATED: LatAm countries (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico) and economic growth in 2025/2026
De Moraes has targeted opposition politicians, including former President Jair Bolsonaro; journalists; newspapers; U.S. social media platforms; and other U.S. and international companies. U.S.-based journalists and U.S. citizens have not been spared from de Moraes’ extraterritorial overreach. De Moraes has imposed preventive detention on and issued a series of preventive arrest warrants against journalists and social media users, some of whom are based in the United States. He has also directly issued orders to U.S. social media companies to block or remove hundreds of accounts, often those of his critics and other critics of the Brazilian government, including U.S. persons. De Moraes has frozen assets and revoked passports of his critics; banned accounts from social media; and directed Brazil’s federal police to raid his critics’ homes, seize their belongings, and ensure their preventive detention.
RELATED: Pemex financial debt, amounts owed providers
De Moraes is being sanctioned pursuant to E.O. 13818 for being a foreign person who is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in, serious human rights abuse.
____________________
