A fugitive defendant from the attacks on the three Powers on the 8th of January bypassed the courts and obtained a new passport even with an open arrest warrant, with an old passport already seized and with a court order to prevent the issuance of new documents to him.
With the new passport in his hands, the fugitive, who was already in , managed to board a plane, arrived at and, there, asked for “international protection” from the government of , which has already granted this benefit to another Bolsonaro investigation.
According to UOL from three sources, failures in the use of Itamaraty and PF systems and in communication between employees of the two bodies allowed the escape of artist Apolo Carvalho da Silva, 28, accused of inciting crime and criminal association.
Initially, the police department did not comment, but later stated that it was not their responsibility. Itamaraty stated that there was a “failure” and “improper granting of a common passport”, that the document was only canceled on January 29, after being contacted by the reporter, and that it is “reviewing the practices for issuing travel documents to avoid mistakes like the one that unfortunately occurred in Mexico”.
In 2024, Apolo joined several people investigating attacks on the three Powers and also fled to , as UOL revealed. In November and December of that year, he and other fugitives made another escape, arriving at and . From there, they headed to Mexico and some reached the , where they were arrested. Now, Apollo made his third escape.
The first hearing by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior to analyze Apolo’s request for “international protection” is expected to take place on April 16, documents obtained by the report show. He will be accompanied by lawyer Fábio Pagnozzi —defender of the former deputy (-SP), fugitive and imprisoned in .
After his second escape, Apolo stayed in Mexico between January and December last year, where he settled in the state of Querétaro, around 200 km from the Mexican capital, working as a mechanic, UOL found.
On September 2, 2025, he went to the Mexican capital, filed a police report saying he was a tourist and had “lost” his passport. “I lost my passport in the center of Mexico City. I realized the document was missing when I arrived at the hotel,” Apolo said in the police report. “I was in Mexico as a tourist.”
Apolo checked the list of documents needed to issue a new passport at the embassy and went to the consulate with them and the police report. He had in his hands the original driver’s license, the second copy of the birth certificate that he had obtained online, a digital electoral card, printed proof that, days before, he had paid the electoral fines for not having voted in the 2024 elections and the CPF number. He gave a false address to avoid being arrested in the following days.
In September, when he entered the consulate and was in front of Brazilian officials, it had been two and a half years since the minister of the (Supreme Federal Court) had determined that:
- Apolo should stay at home with an electronic ankle bracelet, awaiting the results of investigations that had resulted in his arrest on January 9, 2023;
- he was prohibited from leaving the country and had to surrender his passport;
- the Federal Police and Itamaraty should cancel Apolo’s passports, including the one he should hand over to the Court;
- the Federal Police and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should take “all necessary measures to prevent the issuance of any other passports in the name of the person being investigated”, according to the STF decision of March 16, 2023.
Apolo had actually handed over his passport on September 18, 2023 at the Criminal Executions Court of Uberaba (MG).
On June 10, 2024, he had broken his ankle bracelet and fled Brazil to Argentina. In September 2024, an arrest warrant had been issued for him.
None of this was analyzed by officials at the consulate. After applying for his passport inside the diplomatic unit in Mexico, Apolo returned to his city about 200 km away. He returned to the consulate days later, an area under Brazilian jurisdiction, in which he could be arrested at any time. But the passport was issued on September 29th. It is signed by the vice-consul of Brazil in Mexico, Gustavo Alexandre Magalhães. The document states that it was “granted to replace a lost passport.”
The consulate is in Mexico City, where the Brazilian Embassy in the country also operates, where two representatives of the Federal Police, a delegate and an agent work. For some reason, employees at the consulate and embassy, including the federal police, did not verify that he had a warrant for his arrest and court orders to have his passports cancelled, seized and no longer issued.
Itamaraty informed UOL that the inker “requested urgency, claimed to be a tourist who had had his documents stolen [sic] in the city center, and filed a police report to support the allegations”.
“The consulate then issued the new document, without detecting the applicant’s fugitive status,” said Itamaraty in response to UOL.
He took a flight to Spain in December, and was received by journalist Oswaldo Eustáquio, supporter of the Bolsonarista movement. The “dribble” at Itamaraty was only observed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in January. Apolo’s new passport was only canceled on January 29, hours after UOL asked the PF and diplomats for clarification.
“The incident motivated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to investigate the causes of the incident and to carry out a review of practices for issuing travel documents to avoid mistakes such as the one that regrettably occurred in Mexico”, responded Itamaraty. An agreement was being negotiated with the PF to “deepen the integration between the systems of the two bodies and enable direct access to the databases on both sides, without the need for access modules, which will increase the integration and security of the systems”.
After the publication of this report, on the morning of this Monday (2), the Federal Police department stated that it does not participate in issuing passports abroad, even when operating within embassies. Everything is up to Itamaraty, stated the corporation. “Even when present in embassies and consulates through its attachments, the Federal Police does not participate in the process of analyzing, granting or issuing passports, activities of a strictly consular nature.” The PF only issues passports within Brazil.
Request for protection
Oblivious to all this, still in December and thousands of kilometers away, in Spain, the artist contacted the police in Almería, 540 km south of the Spanish capital. There, he made a request for “international protection”. Today, he lives in Madrid. He must report to the General Directorate of Police brigade in Almeria on April 16 for the first hearing of his request for international protection. The expectation of his defense is to have the same success that Eustáquio had when fleeing the country.
In December, the Brazilian government lost the dispute with the Bolsonarist militant, who asked Spain for protection and was not extradited to Brazil.
“Spain was very receptive to the people of January 8th,” Apolo’s lawyer, Fábio Pagnozzi, told UOL. He said that the request for international protection is equivalent to a request for asylum because the motivation is “political persecution” against opponents in Brazil.
‘It’s invaded’
On January 8, 2023, Apollo was in the invasion of the three Powers. Videos taken by himself and identified by Federal Police experts show him wearing a white cap, an improvised mask with the Brazilian flag and a blue t-shirt. In some, expert Jorge Ricardo Oliveira reported that “it is possible to hear phrases such as ‘it’s invaded’, ‘all ours’, ‘it’s ours’ and ‘everything invaded'”.
Despite this, Apolo was only arrested the following day at the Army headquarters, which allowed him not to be denounced for the most serious crimes — coup d’état, damage to property and violent abolition of the democratic State.
In his defense, his first lawyer denied that he was involved in the invasion and said he disapproved of whoever had done it. According to the defense, Apolo only arrived on Sunday night, after the break, which is contradicted by forensics. Apolo was in the city since 7:30 am.
“He was just gathered in a public place with other people who were praying there for the future of the country (…) the applicant disapproves of the acts that occurred on the date and place in question, therefore, in an act of total disapproval, he only remained vigil in the Army barracks”, said Apolo’s defense on March 15, 2023.
Despite this, Apolo remains charged only with incitement to crime and criminal association. If this persists, he should be punished with just one year or, at most, two years of open detention, as happened with other defendants.
In January 2024, Apolo rejected an agreement that would free him from prosecution as long as he confessed to his crimes, paid a fine, performed community service and took a course on democracy. Pagnozzi said that the inker did not sign the agreement because, at the time, the fine was R$20,000.
He further stated that the accusations against Apolo are generic. “There isn’t much evidence against him. Apolo was in Congress in a photo. Everyone was on the same page that Brazil was going to change… Everything is generic,” said Pagnozzi.
In theory, the fugitive is a candidate for a low sentence in Brazil and, if he resolves the provisional situation of the preventive arrest warrant, return to freedom, as Minister Alexandre de Moraes has already determined for other fugitives.
But, according to Pagnozzi, Apolo reported that he fled Brazil because he feared being detained for repeatedly failing to return home, a limit that was reduced from 10pm to 6pm, which made it impossible for him to leave work. Today the inker fears that, upon returning to the country, the Public Prosecutor’s Office will use the PF’s expertise on his cell phone to ask for a greater sentence for him, also accusing him of a coup d’état and damage to property.
