The former director of Brazil’s Federal Highway Police under the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro was arrested yesterday morning at the airport in Asunción, Paraguay, while trying to leave Brazil. A few days ago, Silvinei Vasques was sentenced to 24 years in prison for participating in the plot to keep Bolsonaro in power despite the electoral defeat he suffered to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2022. Like other illustrious convicted Bolsonaro supporters, Vasques tried to escape the country to avoid prison, but in his case the plan did not work.
The former police chief was arrested while trying to board a flight to El Salvador. He took a Paraguayan passport, but the airport officials noticed that there was something rare: the document was original, from a certain “Julio Eduardo”, but the fingerprints were left in the box. The police were so high that they could have taken care of a Brazilian fugitive, because a few hours before the Brazilian authorities had sent a warning signal to their colleagues in Argentina and Paraguay.
The alarm went off early in the morning, when Vasques was forced to use the electronic toll box to send signals. Police went to his home in São José, in the southern state of Santa Catarina, but Vasques was not there. He rented a car, took his dog and headed to Asunción, more than 1,200 kilometers away. After this thwarted escape, the Paraguayan authorities handed him over to the Fiscalía, who should return him to Brazil in the coming hours.
Vasques was one of Bolsonaro’s allies who put state structures at the service of the putschist strategy. On the day of the second flight between Bolsonaro and Lula da Silva, Vasques ordered road cuts, blockades and bus registrations in Brazil’s northeastern regions, representing a large number of votes for the country. The actions aimed at obstructing the vote of Lula’s supposed voters were revealed the same day and caused a huge scandal. Later, it is assumed that in private meetings, Vasques claimed that the moment had arrived when the Carreteras police “took sides.”
Vasques was detained in 2023 preventively, because the justice system understood that if he remained free, he could force subordinate agents to change their version of the facts. After a year in prison, I was released, but with several precautionary measures, such as a ban on using social media and mandatory use of an electronic device. His legal problems haven’t stopped him from trying to rebuild his life: last year he was appointed innovation secretary of the São José district. He left his post a few weeks ago, the same day he was sentenced to 24 years in prison. At present, we are waiting for all appeals before the Federal Court to be exhausted. His entry into prison was only a matter of weeks.
Vasques joins the list of other well-known fugitive Bolsonarists. In addition to the dozens of participants in the assault on institutional buildings in Brasilia on January 8, 2023 who found themselves refugees in Argentina or Paraguay, and who are gradually being extradited to Brazil, there are a handful of far-right celebrities who managed to escape from prisons. The highlights are Carla Zambelli, for years one of the muses of Brazil’s extreme government in Congress, and Alexandre Ramagem, a police officer Bolsonaro chose to head the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN).
Zambelli was sentenced to ten years in prison for hiring a hacker to invade the digital justice system and issue a false arrest warrant for Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. She arrived in Italy in June, benefiting from her dual nationality, but after a few weeks she was arrested. She is now in a women’s prison outside Rome, awaiting extradition to Brazil.
MP Alexandre Ramagem, who had spied on opponents, journalists and activists on Bolsonaro’s orders, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In September, he drove to the northern border of Brazil, went to Guyana, flew to the EE UU and now lives in Miami. The Brazilian government is finalizing the official extradition request to US authorities, although this matter is considered complicated, due to US law and the Donald Trump factor.
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