Brazil's Mato Grosso adopts new anti‑organized crime law

The Mato Grosso judiciary held a series of public hearings to discuss Law No. 15.358/2026, known as the Anti‑Faction Law, which strengthens Brazil's legal framework against organized crime and militias. The law expands investigative powers, extends inquiry periods to 90 days (renewable), authorises automatic preventive detention of faction members, and allows pre‑conviction asset seizure and forfeiture without prescription. Judges, prosecutors, police officers and representatives of the OAB highlighted the law’s focus on economically crippling criminal groups, noting that “the focus of the law is not incarceration, but economic strangulation.”

Participants, including Judge Aline Luciane Ribeiro Viana Quinto Bissoni, Prosecutor Anne Karine Louzich Hugueney, and Police Delegates Gustavo Godoy and Caio Albuquerque, debated both the law’s advantages—such as faster judicial measures and harsher penalties—and constitutional concerns raised by defence lawyers. The hearings aimed to evaluate the law’s impact on Brazil’s criminal‑justice system and to refine its application.