Fleeing Bolsonaro ally arrested in Paraguay after coup conviction

University students display an inflatable doll of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro wearing prisoner garb in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

A Brazilian former police chief who fled the country after he was convicted as an accomplice in the attempted coup trial of far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, has been arrested in Paraguay, a police source said Friday.

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

Vasques, 50, was arrested in 2023 and placed under supervision with an electronic ankle bracelet pending trial.

This month, he was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison, to be served under house arrest, prompting him to flee Brazil.

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

He was reportedly detained at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport in Paraguay’s capital Asuncion while attempting to board a flight to El Salvador using false travel documents.

A Brazilian police source told AFP he was arrested in the early hours of Friday.

After his return to Brazil, a judge ordered that he be sent to prison, revoking Vasques’s house arrest privileges.

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

He had been under house arrest until shortly before the official start of his jail term, but was detained and sent to prison after he took a soldering iron to his ankle monitoring bracelet in what the court saw as an escape attempt.