Collor de Mello arrested
April 25, 2025
Former Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello was arrested early today. He was detained at an airport, where he intended to fly to Brasilia to turn himself into authorities, after Supreme Court justice Alexander de Moraes rejected his challenges against a previous conviction and ordered him to start serving jail time. (Reuters, El País)
He will begin serving an eight-year prison sentence stemming from his 2023 conviction for corruption. The entire Supreme Court will convene today to vote on Moraes’ ruling.
Collor was convicted of receiving $3.5m to facilitate contracts between BR Distribuidora, a fuel distributor formerly controlled by the state-owned oil company Petrobras, and construction firm UTC Engenharia for the construction of fuel distribution bases. In return, he offered political support for the appointment of executives at BR Distribuidora when it was still state-owned. The case stemmed from the Operation Car Wash, reports the Associated Press.
More Brazil
Belem, the Amazonian host city for COP30 later this year, is one of the poorest cities in Brazil. “It faces mounting criticism about its preparations for an international conference that is on a far greater scale than anything previously seen in the rainforest region,” reports the Guardian.
Environmental groups are outraged that the world’s biggest meatpacking company, JBS, which has long been linked to Amazon’s deforestation, has received approval from US authorities to list on the New York Stock Exchange, reports the Guardian.
Rodrigo Nunes explains how delivery-app workers in Brazil have rallied against the right and demanded better conditions — Guardian.
Regional
“Inspiration on how to beat back authoritarianism is in short supply, but those searching for hope in these dark times might consider Latin America,” writes Greg Grandin in the Guardian. “For all its maladies, for all its rightwing dictators and leftwing caudillos, for all its failings when it comes to democratic institutions, the region’s democratic spirit is surprisingly vital.”
Latin America’s organized crime groups source much of their arsenal from the U.S. — “what is happening in Haiti is not unique. It is the logical endpoint of a regional pattern: when institutions are brittle and the guns keep coming, the result is not just violence, but state failure,” argue Robert Muggah and Katherine Aguirre in Americas Quarterly.
Mexico
A massive expansion of Mexico's largest seaport is under way as Mexican authorities bet on positive economic growth and the strength of global trade, reports Reuters.
Regional Relations
The U.S. anti-migrant ads that Mexico’s government seeks to pull off the air “are part of an unusual, multimillion-dollar initiative paid for with U.S. taxpayer dollars … aimed at encouraging undocumented immigrants in the United States to self-deport, and warning foreigners against attempting to slip over the border,” reports the Washington Post. (See Tuesday’s briefs.)
The United States called on other countries to share the financial burden in fighting criminal governance and lawless chaos in Haiti, highlighting the funding struggles facing an international security support mission, reports InSight Crime. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said the migrant crisis in the Darién is solved, as people crossing from Colombia fall to new lows, reports La Silla Vacía.
Argentina
Argentine deregulation tsar Federico Sturzenegger gifted IMF head Kristalina Georgieva a chainsaw-shaped pin, which she proudly sported on her lapel in pictures yesterday. (Perfil)
Georgieva caused a kerfuffle yesterday urging Argentina to maintain the path of change, a statement widely interpreted as supporting the Milei government ahead of legislative elections later this year. (Ámbito)
“Argentina’s peso has defied many analysts’ expectations and avoided a sharp fall following the relaxation of its fixed exchange rate this month, prompting libertarian President Javier Milei to mock economists who had warned of a much bigger drop,” reports the Financial Times.
Milei's culture secretary was booed and heckled by at the international book fair inauguration in Buenos Aires, yesterday. (Buenos Aires Times)
Ecuador
Under Daniel Noboa’s crackdown on organized crime in Ecuador, the number of children who have disappeared practically doubled: 322 children in 2024, according to a new Connectas report.
History
The history of Latin America’s import-substitution industrialization policies should be a warning to Trump, argues Javier Corrales in Foreign Affairs.