STF maintains arrest of Silvinei Vasques after custody hearing

Silvinei remains at the Federal Superintendence of Police, where he also underwent a criminal examination. He should be imprisoned in Papudinha, where former Justice Minister Anderson Torres is already detained. The location is a wing of Papuda Penitentiary.

On Friday, Silvinei Vasques was arrested at Asunción airport with Paraguayan documents as she attempted to board a flight to El Salvador shortly after fleeing Brazil. It was then handed over by the Paraguayan National Police to the Brazilian authorities, on the border between the two countries, between the cities of Foz do Iguaçu (PR) and Ciudad del Este. From Paraná he was transferred to Brasilia.

Vasques led the PRF under the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro and was sentenced ten days ago by the Federal Supreme Court to 24 years and six months in prison for his participation in the coup plot.

The former PRF general director was arrested 1,300 kilometers from the municipality of São José, in the metropolitan region of Florianópolis, where he resided. He was responsible for the city’s economic development and innovation until December 16.

According to the Federal Police (PF) investigation, Silvinei’s escape plan involved the use of an ID cell and a Paraguayan passport. He broke the electronic bracelet on his ankle and left his house on Christmas Eve, after renting a vehicle for the journey, which lasted at least 18 hours.

After Silvinei’s arrest in Paraguay, Minister Alexandre de Moraes, rapporteur of the criminal action against the STF putsch plot, ordered the preventive detention of the former director of Bolsonaro’s PRF.

Security footage of Silvinei’s building obtained by the PF shows that he was last seen at his address in São José at 7 p.m. on the 24th, Christmas Eve. At that point, he loaded a silver Polo belonging to a car rental company with bags (“they weren’t suitcases,” investigators noted) into the trunk. On the passenger seat, the officer placed bags of food, a toilet mat, a potty and a dog that appeared to be a pit bull breed.

Authorities only became aware of the escape around 3 a.m. on December 25, when the PRF’s electronic ankle bracelet stopped emitting a GPS signal (for location) and, later, a GPRS signal (from the 2G network).

On Christmas Day, at 8 p.m., agents from the Santa Catarina Criminal Police, responsible for electronic surveillance of state inmates, went to Vasques’ address. They knocked on the door, but no one answered. The PF report states: “The federal police team repeated the procedure and arrived at the same results.”

At that time, the former PRF director was already on his way to Asunción International Airport, where he was arrested with documents belonging to a Paraguayan citizen. In an attempt to capture him in time, the PF contacted the Paraguayan assessor’s office, which, in turn, notified the local police, responsible for the arrest. Investigators noted in the filing that the breached electronic ankle monitor was not found.

At the time of his arrest, Silvinei Vasques was in possession of a Paraguayan identity card and passport, both valid, which bore the photo, name and information of another person, Julio Eduardo Baez Fernández, born in 1981 in Ciudad del Este (formerly Puerto Presidente Stroessner).

At the airport, Silvinei had with him a letter in Spanish in which he claimed to be Baez Fernández. The document said he suffered from brain cancer and could neither speak nor understand questions. The trip to El Salvador, the text indicates, was intended to continue the treatment of the alleged illness.

Silvinei had a plane ticket from the Copa airline to board a flight to El Salvador, with a stopover in Panama. At the time, he was wearing a green t-shirt, jeans and black-rimmed glasses. Paraguayan police officers sent photos of Silvinei to the PF, which confirmed that he was the former general director of the PRF.

Born in Ivaiporã (PR), Silvinei Vasques joined PRF in 1995 and built a 27-year career with the company. Under the Bolsonaro government, he was named general director of the institution, the highest position of his career. He voluntarily retired with his full salary in December 2022, shortly after the end of the presidential election.

Election Day Blitz

In 2022, in the weeks leading up to the second round of the presidential election and election day, Silvinei Vasques allegedly favored the political use of the PRF structure. Federal police investigations indicate that inspections and blitzes carried out by the organization were intensified on the highways of the Northeast, a region where Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had an electoral advantage, with the aim of making it difficult for voters in favor of the PT candidacy to vote.

Among the evidence of the illegal action of the PRF, which was allegedly planned by the Ministry of Justice with the approval of the minister at the time, Anderson Torres, and carried out by Silvinei Vasques, are the testimonies of public officials and public officials, as well as messages from authorities in Whatsapp groups.

According to the PGR complaint, Federal Police delegate Marília Ferreira Alencar, who was director of intelligence at the Ministry of Justice and Public Security under the Torres administration, requested the development of a Business Intelligence project (data analysis tool) focused on electoral results. “The objective was to collect information on the places where Lula da Silva obtained a significant vote and where Bolsonaro was defeated, with a particular focus on the municipalities of the Northeast region,” the text states.