Brazil News in English: Travel, Tourism, Crime, Culture, Celebrities, Videos, Beautiful People
| CURITIBA, Brazil – On Thursday, one day after its introduction, a Body Scan machine at Foz do Iguaçu International Airport has assisted police in identifying a drug mule. Federal Police (PF) caught red-handed a 32-year-old Paraguayan man trying to board a flight to Spain with 60 capsules of cocaine hidden in his digestive tract.
Body Scan Image (photo: terra.com.br)
| CAMPO GRANDE, Brazil – A man was arrested last Thursday afternoon in Ponta Pora, 324 km (201 miles) from the capital, on the border of Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraguay, after running a police checkpoint in the Paraguayan city of Pedro Juan Caballero.
Seized Marijuana and M16 Ammo (photo: Reuters / PM)
CURITIBA, Parana – Federal Police (PF) in Iguassu Falls seized 1.7 tons of drugs Tuesday afternoon after pulling over a van containing cargo from Paraguay. The three Paraguayans in the van did not have importation documentation for the boxes in the van, prompting police to intensify the inspection which led to the discovery of the marijuana.
1.7 Tons of Marijuana (photo: terra.com/Federal Police)
SANTO ANASTACIO, Brazil - An operation carried out by the Military Police of Sao Paulo in this small town, 380 miles west of the capitol, in the early afternoon Saturday, resulted in the arrest of Matheus Ricardo Araujo dos Santos, 20, and the seizure of 900 kilos of marijuana, reports terra.com.br.
CAMPO GRANDE, Brazil – A judge in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul has granted bail to the porn actress Juliana Novaes Cardoso de Assis, 32, known professionally as Julia Fontanelli, who has been jailed since August 10th after being caught in a car with a modified chassis number and tampered documents coming from Paraguay, reported O Dia Online.
Julia Fontanelli, who claimed she acted in more than 200 adult films, has denied involvement in the criminal enterprise.
Bail was set at $2,000 dollars by Judge Wilson Leite Correa of the Fourth Criminal Court of Campo Grande on Tuesday and includes Erick Feliciano Batista, 33, suspected of being a member of the First Capital Command gang (PCC) who was in the car with the porn actress when it was stopped by police after a high-speed chase along the BR-163 Highway from Paraguay.
According to police, the arrests fit the pattern used by car thieves from São Paulo who take stolen vehicles to Paraguay where the chassis numbers are modified and false documents are obtained. The cars are then brought back into Brazil.
A spokesman for the State Specialized Police Repression of Vehicle Theft (DEFURV) unit, the actress was accompanying the driver and was complicit in the crime. The actress swor at her bail hearing that she only went to Paraguay “just to go shopping” and was unaware that the car had been stolen.
”It is an ordinary scheme. Gangs steal cars and take then from São Paulo to Paraguay to get “hot documents,” said the DEFURV spokesman, Alberto Viera Rossi. The CCP member arrested with Juliana, who has prior convictions for fraud and receiving stolen property, claimed during police interrogation that he bought the car in the capital and was given legitimate paperwork—an claim rejected by police.
Police were surprised to learn the profession of Julia Fontanelli. “We learned of her profession when we were taking her to the Women's Penitentiary. She told us what she did in detail. According to her, more than 200 films,” said the spokesman.
Police said that 20 vehicles with the same illegalities have been seized in Motto Grosso do Sul so far in 2011. In Paraguay, criminal gangs are able to get the vehicle id numbers changed and false documents made.
Campo Grande is the state capital of Moto Grosso do Sul in the Center-West region of Brazil. The city, population 787,204 according to a 2010 census, is the Western Brazilian Army Headquartersand is an important military center.
Today, the city has its own culture, which is a mixture of several ethnic groups, most notably immigrants from the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, Middle Easterners, Armenians, Portuguese people, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and Paraguayans, finally mixed with Asian and White Brazilians from the Brazilian Southern and Southeast regions, its native Amerindian peoples and Afro-Brazilians.
Due to its geographic position, Campo Grande is a major smuggling center in southern Brazil.
