Bernardo Bello Pimentel Barbosa, former president of the Vila Isabel samba school and accused of being a member of the militia group "Escritório do Crime" met with businessman Eduardo Vinícius Giraldes Silva. Pimentel Barbosa was trying to avoid being betrayed by Julia Mello Lotufo, widow of militia member Adriano da Nóbrega and Giraldes current wife. Bello suggested to Giraldes that he convinced his wife to omit President Jair Bolsonaro's family.
“Imagine if this girl denounces Bolsonaro, ‘Look, my ex used to spend a time there every day with so-and-so’. She is going to fuck the guy up. Ok, she may fuck them up, but they will end her life in green, yellow, blue, and white”, warns Bello, without specifying which member of the president’s family used to have daily meetings with the militiaman.
The conversation is part of a meeting that took place inside a car parked in front of the building where Giraldes lives, in Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro. Brasil de Fato had access to the one hour and eleven minutes long recording. The source who leaked the audio to the report declined to inform the date of the meeting. However, it is a fact that the conversation happened after April 26 and before August 17 this year. In addition to Giraldes and Bello, Pablo Barra Teixeira, the businessman's attorney, was also inside the vehicle.
In another excerpt, Bello explains to Giraldes how Júlia Lotufo should organize her testimony. "So, if she goes there and says 'no, I know about this... Oh, I will not do it here', she'll be fucked, because the guys will catch her even in hell. They'll say 'the guy lied there in the bed and confided to you'. She has to go and say 'look, my ex-husband was crazy, a lunatic, a completely crazy BOPE [Rio de Janeiro's elite police force] captain who used to lie in bed and the only thing he did to me when he did something, was to say hi and bye '." Bello's attempt was in vain. According to VEJA magazine and R7 Portal, on July 7 this year, Lotufo presented a proposal for a plea agreement to the Rio de Janeiro State's Attorney Office. In the document, she accused the former president of the Vila Isabel samba school of being Adriano da Nóbrega's partner in charge of the Escritório do Crime, an organization that houses paid killers and is accused of having executed the former Rio councilor Marielle Franco (PSOL Party) in March 2018.
According to the press, in the plea agreement, Lotufo confirms that the meeting inside the car really happened and was in front of the building where the couple lives. Images from the condo's security system show the reunion. They were included in the process.
Julia Lotufo is accused of participating in a money-laundering scheme and is under house arrest. The Civil Police maintains a vehicle in front of the building of Adriano da Nóbrega's widow for 24 hours a day to ensure her safety.
The Bolsonaro Family and Adriano da Nóbrega
The president's family is mentioned on two more occasions during the conversation. In the second excerpt, Bello explains to Giraldes that he considers Julia Lotufo's situation “complicated”, since her case would have been politicized, precisely because of Adriano da Nóbrega's relationship with the Bolsonaro clan.
“It's obvious she is in bad spirits, and it is because of politics, man. It's because they want, anyway, to hunt the guys [Bolsonaro and his sons], the family that is in power and, unfortunately, her ex-husband [Adriano da Nóbrega] is involved with the guys”, explains Bello.
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The last time they talk about the Bolsonaro family, Bello quotes congressman Flávio Bolsonaro (Patriota Party). The former president of Vila Isabel begins by talking about the difficulty in removing Julia Lotufo's name from the news.
“Her problem is the political attention, man. It's 100% political. Have you ever seen a dead man stay in the newspaper for so long? How long ago did Adriano die? To this day, he is in newspapers. We had Fantástico [a Sunday night Brazilian TV show] the other day. Why is he in the news time and again?” Bello asks. Giraldes answers: "Because it involves... I don't know, the name of the president."
“So that's it, man. It involves Queiroz, that asshole to which Adriano was close. Queiroz used to do the rachadinhas [illegal salary deduction] to Flávio Bolsonaro, and who wants to fuck Bolsonaro up the most? The press, man” says Bello.
Among the president's family members, Flávio Bolsonaro is the closest to Adriano da Nóbrega. In a statement to the Rio de Janeiro State's Attorney Office, the congressman admitted that the militiaman was his shooting instructor and that he met him through a former advisor, Fabrício Queiroz, who is accused of being the operator of a rachadinha scheme in Flávio's office.
In his term in the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly (Alerj, in Portuguese), when he was state deputy, Flávio Bolsonaro hired Danielle Mendonça, Nóbrega's ex-wife, and Raimunda Magalhães, the militiaman's mother. Nobrega was killed in February 2018 during a shootout with the Military Police of Bahia state.
In 2005, when Flávio Bolsonaro was still a state deputy, he awarded Adriano da Nóbrega, at Alerj, with the Tiradentes Medal, Rio de Janeiro's highest honor. At the time, the former policeman was serving a sentence and had already been pre-trial detained for murder.
Read more: An indigenous association denounced Bolsonaro for genocide to the International Criminal Court
Death threat
The meeting between Eduardo Giraldes and Bernardo Bello was arranged by Pablo Teixeira, who answered a request from his client. The businessman claims to have heard that the former president of Vila Isabel intended to assassinate him.
“What made me very scared is that it's not my life, my life is the opposite, you know? I don't deal with contravention, with machines, with anything. I walk around Barra [daTijuca], everyone knows me, and I hardly knew you at all”, Giraldes says to Bello. “It started a shitload of gossip that you were going to kill me. I swear to you. You were going to kill me, you were going to arrest me because I'm a son of a bitch. Me? What do I have to do with this story? Nothing."
Bello says he heard that Giraldes visited a mutual friend of theirs, former military policeman Adriano Maciel de Souza, known as Chuca, who lost a leg after being shot in an attack on January 30 this year.
“So, I'll explain to you where you get into the story. About a month ago, a mutual friend of the three of us here [Chuca] looks for a friend of mine and [says] 'Hey, brother, I have a bad talk to you'. I said 'what is it?'. 'Well, the man [Eduardo Giraldes] who is dating... married to the widow [Julia Lotufo] was here with me and said that the widow wants to stick your ass and fuck you up all over. She's going to destroy you and say a lot of shit with your name'. I said: 'What?' Am I telling a lie?”, Bello asks.
Giraldes, feeling intimidated, is succinct in his answer. "That part I don't know." Bello retorts. "Have you been with the guy I'm talking about, the one who lost his leg?". “He's been my friend for 20 years... But I never said that”, the businessman finishes.
Annoyed, Bello raises his tone of voice to Giraldes. "My wish is to pick you up and go to his house and say 'Brother, repeat what you said. So, he got shot and went crazy? Has he lost his leg or his head? Has he lost his leg or his brain?” he asks.
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Chuca was with his security guard when he was shot while inside an armored car. The vehicle received at least 25 rounds of 556 caliber. A 2014 investigation by the Homicide Division points out the former military policeman as a member of a gang working with slot machines and jogo do bicho [a kind of game of chance] in Rio de Janeiro.
The dead and the widow
During the conversation, Giraldes reveals how he approached Lotufo, after helping to hide her while she was running away from the police, right after the death of the militia member, her ex-husband. “Adriano dies in February. Right after that, I bump into her at the… [inaudible] … Fratelli [restaurant in Rio de Janeiro]", he recalls. “She was living at her mother's house. I had an apartment of mine that was, I mean... Fuck, that was empty. I said 'Stay there'. No malice, no nothing. Well, how are you going to hit on a widow who cried 24 hours?”.
The businessman goes on talking about his relationship with Lotufo and explains that she is depressed. According to Giraldes, Adriano da Nóbrega's widow takes seven medicines. “She gets high. It is cowardliness”. “She can take medicine for everything in the world. She just can't take medicine for one thing, because of me, because I never wanted her harm and I'll never want to”, guarantees Bello.
In another excerpt, Giraldes decides to explain how he deals with his wife's relationship with the memory of Adriano da Nóbrega and his secrets. “That's right, Bernardo, it's a pain that belongs to her, I can't dig it up. Everyone has the curiosity to understand the story. I do not have. When people start to talk about it, she talking about him, I get up. I don't know who was [working as] security guard, I don't know who killed, didn't kill, who stole, who the fuck made this or that, who built buildings, I don't know. Because I don't ask and I believe she shouldn't know, because Adriano was a person who didn't talk.”
Before saying goodbye, Giraldes explains the couple's routine and how he takes care of Julia Lotufo. “Bernardo, her anklet monitor never run out, brother, I don't let it happen. I take it, plug it in, like a cell phone... I don't touch it. All this in order to not have a comma [problems with the Justice Department]. They say she has to stay with it for three hours. She stays for six”, he says.
Convicted
Married to Julia Lotuffo, Giraldes is a well-known businessman in Rio de Janeiro. He used his olive oil company, Royal, to sponsor the four biggest soccer teams of Rio state: Flamengo, Vasco, Botafogo, and Fluminense. Besides Atlético-MG, from Belo Horizonte.
Giraldes also invests in the Rio de Janeiro carnival. The businessman sponsors some boxes at Sapucaí, where soccer players, singers, actors, and actresses, among other celebrities, go to watch the Samba Schools' Parade.
But where does so much money come from? According to the Public Attorney’s Office, Giraldes is part of a credit card cloning gang. In 2016, he was convicted at the trial court to 8 years and 3 months in prison for a criminal association, theft through fraud, larceny, and document forgery.
In August 2020, the conviction was upheld, but the sentence was reduced to 5 years and 10 months in prison. The Federal Police seized Giraldes' passport. To leave the country, he must request authorization from the Court.
The other side
Brasil de Fato couldn't contact Eduardo Giraldes and Julia Lotufo or even their attorneys. Bernardo Bello's defense declined to comment. If they make any statement, this article will be updated.
Edited by: Vivian Virissimo
