Key Bolsonaro ally arrested in Paraguay while trying to flee to El Salvador 

A Brazilian former police chief, who fled the country after he was convicted as an accomplice in the attempted coup by Brazil’s far-right ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested in Paraguay, according to the country’s immigration agency.

Silvinei Vasques was arrested on Friday at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, the Paraguayan National Migration Directorate (DNM) said in a statement posted on its website.

The agency said Vasques was arrested for “identity theft” after “attempting to evade immigration controls by impersonating a Paraguayan citizen”.

Vasques was arrested while attempting to board a flight to Panama, declaring El Salvador as his final destination, the DNM statement said.

The wanted police chief had “clandestinely” entered Paraguay while “evading justice in his home country”, DNM added.

An image published on X by Paraguayan immigration authorities showed Vasques’s arrest and identification.

A separate video clip posted on the same account showed Vasques being turned over to Brazilian federal police at the Friendship Bridge border crossing that connects Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este and Brazil’s Foz do Iguacu.

Translation: The National Directorate of Migration (DNM) expelled Silvinei Vasques from the country. Moments ago, the DNM expelled Silvinei Vasques (50) from the country, subsequently handing him over to Brazilian Federal Police authorities at the Friendship Bridge border crossing.

Vasques, the former chief of Brazil’s highway police, was accused of deploying officers to prevent voters in left-leaning areas from casting their ballots in 2022 elections that Bolsonaro lost to left-wing candidate and current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

He was arrested in 2023 and placed under supervision with an electronic ankle monitor pending trial. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison to be served under house arrest. He fled Brazil shortly after.

Brazilian media reported that Vasques broke his ankle monitor and drove across the border to Paraguay.

Brazil Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the fugitive’s preventive detention as a precautionary measure on  Friday, Reuters news agency reported, citing a court document and information from two people familiar with the matter.

Reached by Reuters, Vasques’s lawyer did not comment on his client’s attempt to flee.

Vasques is not the first official convicted over the 2023 coup attempt who has tried to escape from Brazil. In November, the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of the former intelligence agency director Alexandre Ramagem, who left the country in September and has since been living in the United States.

That same month, Justice Moraes also ordered Bolsonaro be detained after the former president tried to remove his court-ordered ankle monitor using a soldering iron, in what the court saw as an attempt to escape justice.

Bolsonaro, 70, is now serving a 27-year sentence in jail after being found guilty in September of having led the plot to prevent Lula from taking office.

On Thursday, the former president underwent surgery in hospital for a hernia.