Note from BW of Brazil: Have I ever told you how much Brazilians love novelas (soap operas)? I think I’ve spoken a bit about this in previous articles. Well, none of the wildly successful novelas that come on the airwaves can compare to the real-life drama that’s developing as the one-year anniversary of a brutal murder that shocked the world: the assassination of Rio de Janeiro councilwoman Marielle Franco. Various sites and articles mentioned with each passing month that Marielle’s killers have yet to be captured and accused. But wouldn’t you know it, just two days before the one-year anniversary of Franco’s death and out comes some jaw-dropping information.
Not only has the ongoing investigation fingered the alleged assassin that fired the fatal shots on that night on March 14, 2018, the details point to a connection that some have contemplated for several months now: a link between the murdered and newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been in office for just over two months now. Just over a month, I presented a story that brought about a possible link between the Bolsonaro clan and the murder of Marielle, after details of some apparent shady dealings of the President’s son, Flávio.
Well, needless to say, today’s story throws another login into the fire and even sprays a little gasoline on it! So you say that the mother and wife of a militiaman worked in the office of the then state deputy, the President’s son is just a coincidence?
OK, and if the man accused of firing the fatal shots just happens to a neighbor of the President? So, their living close to each other also means nothing, right? What if I told that there are photos of the President with the assassin? Well, the President just happens to know some important people, right? Well, what if I told you the daughter of the assassin also dated one of the President’s sons? I know, it’s probably all just a conspiracy theory, right? I’ll tell you what, I WILL most def be following the developments of this story!
And with such a hot story, you can best believe the internet is on fire right now.
Police arrest suspects of killing Marielle Franco: one of them, Military Police soldier Ronnie Lessa, is neighbor of Jair Bolsonaro in Rio
Courtesy of Vio Mundo
Sergeant Queiroz posted a photo with Bolsonaro on his Facebook page on August 4, 2018
It’s not enough to arrest mercenaries, it is important to know who ordered all this and what the motivation was. Mônica Benício, widow of Marielle Franco
Courtesy of Vio Mundo
Councilwoman Marielle Franco was murdered almost a year ago in Rio de Janeiro, on March 14.Even dead and therefore out of the way of those who wanted to get rid of her, the right-wing meat grinder tried to attack her with a series of lies on social networks. They would try to associate her with a big drug dealer, with organized crime.Did whoever killed Marielle Franco for the second time, in social networks, do it in an organized way?
The Rio militias are composed of police officers and former police officers, who know the methods of the police itself in detailing and seek coverage from politicians whose campaigns they fund. During the investigations the classic attempt was made to create a false positive, that is, to suggest false suspects with the aim of shuffling the case.
It reached the point where the Federal Police opened an investigation to investigate the behavior of some civilian police.Yesterday, on the eve of the arrest of the suspects, President Jair Bolsonaro attacked the daughter of journalist Chico Otávio on Twitter – and mentioned him himself. Otávio is one of the few investigative journalists in Brazil capable of going beyond the police in their investigations.
One of the prisoners, Sergeant Ronnie Lessa, lives in the same condominium of Jair Bolsonaro, in Rio. As the arrests were made this morning, it is obvious that Chico Otávio and his colleagues had already had time to write the reports published today on the website of O Globo.
Coincidences, of course
PM and ex-PM arrested for murder of Marielle Franco
Retired Military Police (PM) Sergeant Ronnie Lessa has been remanded in custody by the substitute judge of the 4th Jury Court.
The Homicide Police (DH) and the Special Action Group to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco/MPRJ) arrested 48-year-old retired military police sergeant Ronnie Lessa on Tuesday morning and former – MP Elcio Vieira de Queiroz, 46, for involvement in the murder of councilwoman Marielle Franco (PSOL) and driver Anderson Gomes.
On Thursday, the killings would complete one year. The two were detained by the substitute judge of the 4th Jury Trial Gustavo Kalil, after denunciation by the prosecution.
According to the denouncement of the Rio MP, Lessa would have shot at the victims, and Elcio was the one who drove the silver Cobalt used in the ambush. The second accused was expelled from the corporation. According to prosecutors Simone Sibilio and Leticia Emile, the crime was “meticulously” planned three months earlier.
In addition to the arrests, the operation seeks to execute searches and seizure warrants in the addresses of the accused to seize documents, cell phones, notebooks, computers, weapons, accessories, ammunition and other objects.
Lessa and Elcio were denounced for the murder and also for the attempted murder of Fernanda Chaves, an advisor to the councilwoman who survived the attack.
The action was called Operação Buraco do Lume, in reference to the location downtown of the same name, in Rua São José, where Marielle was accountable to the population about measures taken in her mandate. There she also developed the Lume Feminista project.
The accused were arrested at 4 am this morning. The prosecutors also request the suspension of Lessa’s compensation and possession of firearms.
It was also requested compensation for moral damages to the families of the victims and the fixing of pension in favor of the minor aged son of the driver Anderson until he turns 24 years of age. In a part of the denouncement, they emphasized: “It is undisputed that Marielle Francisco da Silva was summarily executed because of her political actions in defense of the causes she defended. The barbarism practiced on the night of March 14, 2018 was a blow to the Democratic State of Law.”
Police and Gaeco arrived at 4am on Tuesday at the homes of those investigated. Police officer Lessa lives in the condominium of Vivendas da Barra, at 3100 Avenida Lúcio Costa, coincidentally, the same as the president of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro (PSL).
There is, however, no connection except the fact that they are neighbors. The condominium is facing the sea, with security at the entrance.
The suspect monitored Marielle’s agenda
The main evidence collected by researchers came from the break in the secrecy of Ronnie Lessa’s digital data. By checking files accessed by him on the cell phone before the crime, stored in the “cloud” (data that is stored in an external server and can be viewed remotely), they found that the suspect was monitoring the schedule of events that Marielle participated in.
For the police, it is an indication that the councilwoman was having her steps tracked. Marielle, according to the investigation, participated in at least one of the agendas researched by the suspect.
According to a source who investigated the case, Lessa used at the time of the crime a “bush” telephone (bought with the CPF of third parties, not to be traced).
The device registered with the telephone operator on behalf of the sergeant himself was used on the day of the double murder by a woman in a neighborhood in the South Zone.
According to the investigator, the aim of the suspect was to confuse the police if the agents were to check the telephone antennas of the radio base stations (ERBS) to check if Lessa’s personal cell phone was at the scene of the crime.
And that’s exactly what the agents did. To get to the cell “bush” phone used by the PM at the scene of the crime, the investigators really had to do what they call antenna triangulation, that is, raise the ERBS from the crime scene and draw a more precise location, thus refining the search for criminals’ cell phones.
The result of this survey of the telephones connected in the region where the councilwoman passed through, from the exit of the City Council to the ambush site, in Estácio, generated an extensive list. It was like finding a needle in the haystack.
In an exercise of patience, for several months, police officers in the area of HD technology worked on the research, reducing the targets, but still the number was high.
Despite the complexity, the researchers, based on an image of security cameras on Rua dos Inválidos, downtown, on March 14th, recorded the times when a cell phone appears lit up in the executioners’ Cobalt silver. Their car was parked near the Casa das Pretas, where Marielle was a mediator of a debate.
With the record of the time that the possible device was in use, the police re-screened in the existing list of cell phones until discovering that one of these phones made contact with a person related to Lessa. From there, the police went to get the data in the police soldier cloud.
Homage for the ‘good services provided’
Extremely operational, Ronnie Lessa found in the 9th BPM (Rocha Miranda) the perfect unit for his profile. After all, the battalion, back in 1992, was reputed to be violent, appearing frequently in newspaper headlines.
No wonder the policemen who served at that time were known as “Cavalos Corredores” (Runner Horses). It was from the unit of Rocha Miranda that the MPs condemned for the Vigário Geral massacre were released. In 1993 Vigário Geral massacre, 21 people – eight of them evangelicals from the same family – were executed.
At the time, the battalion had practically its whole staff with cases of auto de resistência, a situation that attracted the spotlight precisely because of the massacre. Ronnie Lessa was still a soldier and fit in with his colleagues.
His garrison was one of the corporation’s champions of praise for operations that included the seizure of weapons and drugs, the busting of drug preparation and packaging sites and prisons.
The head of the group was a captain who is still remembered today as one of the three most operational officers who passed through the Special Operations Battalion (Bope): Cláudio Luiz Silva de Oliveira.
For the general public, today he is known as Lieutenant Colonel Cláudio, sentenced to 36 years in prison as the one who ordered the murder of Judge Patricia Acioli in 2011. Cláudio is serving time in the Federal Penitentiary of Mossoró, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte.
Suspect received many compliments
Ronnie Lessa and his garrison, almost always formed by the same members, were congratulated twice a month, on average
It was one praise per month, and in 1997, in the month of March, there were two mentions. But the PM no longer had space for Lessa, who, along with other colleagues from the same garrison, began to work in Rio’s specialized police stations, such as those responsible for cargo robberies – precisely because most of the targets were from favelas in the area of the Rocha Miranda barracks, which the garrison knew well, from capturing prisoners (Polinter) and to curb kidnappings.
Among the colleagues who followed with Lessa are: Roberto Oliveira Dias, known as Beto Cachorro; and the brothers Ivan Jorge Evangelista de Araújo and Floriano Jorge Evangelista Araújo.
All were investigated in Operação Guilhotina, triggered by the Federal Police that investigated police corruption in the Civil Police. Lessa was not indicted at the time.
Discreet but effective
Lessa also received a motion from the state deputy Pedro Fernandes (PSD), on November 23, 1998, the grandfather of the current Secretary of Education Pedro Fernandes.
Fernandes highlighted at the time: “the way he has been guiding his professional life as a military police soldier of the 9th BPM. Without any embarrassment, I can say that the military man is worthy of this honor, for always honoring his postures, attitudes and professional performance, his human condition and being a discreet but effective military man. In this way, he constitutes a brilliant example for those with whom he co-exists and for those who come to know him. For all this, I am proud and honored to propose this motion of praise.”
Amnesty International
HOW THE POLICE GOT TO THE SUSPECTS OF KILLING MARIELLE.
The step by step investigation leading to the names of PM Ronnie Lessa and Ex-PM Elcio Queiroz
“It is undisputed that Marielle Francisco da Silva was summarily executed because of her political actions in defense of the causes she defended. The barbaric act carried out on the night of March 14, 2018, was a blow to the Democratic State of Law,” prosecutors Simone Sibilio and Leticia Emile said in a complaint against Ronnie Lessa and Elcio Vieira de Queiroz for involvement in the murder of the councilwoman.
Police took months to get the name of Ronnie Lessa, 48, a retired Military Police sergeant.
He, who lives in the same upper-middle class condominium of President Jair Bolsonaro, Vivendas da Barra, in Barra da Tijuca, west of Rio de Janeiro, was named after information received by the police inside and outside of prisons.
Unable to collect physical evidence and testimonies that “delivered” the participation of Lessa, they bet on the digital data of the PM.
They checked the files accessed by Lessa on the cell phone, before the crime, stored in the “cloud”.
Thus, they learned that the suspect was following the councilwoman’s agenda. According to investigators, he used a cell phone purchased from a third party’s CPF (Brazilian ID number).
What was registered under his registration was used, the same day of the murders of Marielle and Anderson Gomes, in the South Zone of Rio. Marielle and Anderson were killed on March 14, 2018, almost a year ago, on Rua João Paulo I, in the Estácio neighborhood, north of Rio.
According to the denouncement of the Rio MP, Lessa would have shot at the victims, and Elcio was the one who drove the silver Cobalt used in the ambush. With the exchange of cell phones, the suspect tried to deceive the police if agents checked the telephone antennas to check if Lessa was at the scene at the time.
For several months, Homicide Police technology officers worked on the investigation, reducing the number of devices investigated. Based on an image of security cameras on Rua dos Inválidos, downtown, on March 14, researchers recorded the times when a cell phone appears with the screen connected inside the executioners’ Cobalt silver.
Their car was parked near the Casa das Pretas, where Marielle was a mediator of a debate.From the time that the device was possibly in use, the researchers did a new screening in the list of cell phones until discovering that one of these phones made contact with a person related to Lessa.
From that point on, police worked to get the data in the police cloud.
Operação Lume, which was launched on Wednesday and led to the arrest of Lessa and Queiroz, and is based on the interception of the suspect’s digital data, also relies on statements from informants, including those imprisoned in the prison system.
After nearly 12 months of investigation, police and the Rio prosecutor agreed to split the inquiry into two parts in order not to waste any more time.
One of the parties was turned into a denouncement, identifying the shooters. The other, which is still ongoing, is focused on finding the perpetrators of the crime – who have not yet been identified.
Despite the arrest of Lessa and Queiroz, the police are certain that a third man was inside the Cobalt that targeted Marielle and Anderson’s car.
On April 27 of last year, Lessa was attacked. He and a friend, a firefighter, were shot in the Quebra-Mar, in the Barra da Tijuca region. A motorcyclist would have boarded their car.
The two soldiers reacted and shot this man, who fled. At the time, the Civil Police reported that it did not rule out any hypothesis for the crime, but considered that the main line of investigation was an attempted assault.
Lessa was forced to file an incident report because he was shot and taken to Lourenço Jorge Municipal Hospital, also in Barra da Tijuca. The chain of events also caught the attention of researchers working on the Marielle case.
This is not the first time Lessa appeared in the news. In 2009, he was the victim of another attack in Bento Ribeiro. A bomb exploded inside his car, an armored Toyota Hilux. He has lost a leg in the crime and has since used a prosthesis.
One of Bolsonaro’s sons dated daughter of Ronnie Lessa, admits police chief
Courtesy of Pragmatismo Político
The first direct relationship of the Bolsonaro family with Ronnie Lessa, who was identified after the investigations as being the author of the 13 shots on Marielle Franco, is revealed. Revelation only occurred after police chief was confronted by journalist
Police chief Giniton Lages, head of the Homicide Office in Rio de Janeiro and one of the investigators on the execution of Marielle Franco, admitted on Tuesday (03/12) that the daughter of retired military police officer Ronnie Lessa – arrested on charges of being the author of the shots – dated one of the sons of President Jair Bolsonaro. The information is from the newspaper Valor Econômico.
During a press conference, the chief said that although Ronnie is the President Jair Bolsonaro’s neighbor, there is no direct relationship between the crime and the Bolsonaro family. “We did not detect that. It’s not important at the moment,” he said.
However, confronted by a journalist about the alleged dating of Ronnie’s daughter with “one of the younger sons” of Jair Bolsonaro, Lages was forced to admit it. “This [the courtship between the two] existed. But this, for us today, did not matter in the criminal motivation. This will be dealt with at the right time,” the chief added, without saying, however, which of the president’s children would have dated the suspect’s daughter.
Ronnie Lessa lives in the same condominium as the president of the Republic and his son Carlos Bolsonaro, in Barra da Tijuca, where he was arrested this morning. The other sons of Jair Bolsonaro are Senator Flávio and Federal Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro. In addition to these, Bolsonaro has a son from his second marriage named Jair Renan, 20.
In the interview, with the presence of Governor Wilson Witzel, the chief said that the remaining doubts regarding the murder of Marielle and driver Anderson Gomes will be answered in the second phase of the investigation, above all who ordered the crime.
Still on Tuesday, the same operation that arrested Ronnie Lessa accomplished the greatest apprehension of rifles in the history of Rio de Janeiro. The armament was found at the home of a childhood friend of the police officer. Find out more here.
Ronnie Lessa
Police officer Ronnie Lessa was in the 9th BPM (Rocha Miranda), often headed by Lieutenant Colonel Cláudio Luiz Silva de Oliveira – known to the public for being sentenced to 36 years in prison, accused of being responsible for the order of the murder of judge Patrícia Acioli. Cláudio is serving time in the Federal Penitentiary of Mossoró, in the state of Rio Grande do Norte.
Until July of last year, at least, Cláudio continued to be part of the PM, receiving his compensation every month. In June, even without serving and protecting the population, Claudio Luiz had the account fattened by R $ 19,916.53. Until that month, in the six years and ten months of prison, he earned R $ 1.7 million between compensation and 13th salary.
Judge Patricia Acioli was killed at the door of her house with 21 shots on August 12, 2011, in the neighborhood of Piratininga, in Niterói, in Rio’s Metropolitan Region. The judge was the sitting judge of the 4th Criminal Court of São Gonçalo and was responsible for the arrest of about 60 police officers linked to militias and extermination groups, a fact that would have generated dissatisfaction among the criminal groups that operated in the region.
Accurate shooter
Officer Ronnie Lessa had never been investigated. Although the corridors of the police stations knew the fame of the retired sergeant, associated with crimes of command by the efficiency in the trigger and by the coldness in the action, Lessa, until today, had a clean record.
After graduating from the Army, he was inducted into the Rio de Janeiro Military Police in 1992 until he became deputy of the Civil Police, working in the defunct Weapons and Explosives Repression Police Station (DRAE), with the same function as the current Cargo Theft Repression Police Station (DRFC) and in the extinct Polinter Sul Captures Division.
Lessa, like other attachés (MPs added to the cadres of the Civil Police), knew more of the streets than any civilian police. Soon, he stood out and gained respect for his agility and courage in the solution of the cases.
This fame, behind the scenes of the police, reached the ears of the contravener Rogério Andrade, at that time increasingly busy in strengthening his army in a bloody territorial dispute with another contravener Fernando Iggnacio de Miranda. At stake, the legacy of the bicheiro (numbers writer) Castor de Andrade, who died in 1997.
Arranged by Andrade, Lessa soon grew in the organization and occupied the high-ranking position of right hand man of the chief. Until in April 2010, a bomb blast in the bicheiro’s car not only killed his son, 17-year-old Diogo Andrade, but also struck Lessa’s credibility with his boss for failing to protect him and his family. The bodyguard and excellent marksman was unable to prevent the young man’s death.
An award from the Civil Police Bomb Squad revealed that to blow up Andrade’s armored Toyota Corolla, a remote-operated device was used with a cell phone.
Source: Pragmatismo Político, Vio Mundo
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