Jim Kouri
May 3, 2006
Brazilian assassin busted in Boston by federal agents
By Jim Kouri

A cooperative investigation between US and Brazilian law enforcement resulted in the arrest of an international fugitive near Boston who has been convicted of two murders in Brazil, including the assassination of an Amazon labor leader. He's also been charged with a third murder.

Last week, special agents from the Department of Homeland Security's US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Document and Benefit Task Force and the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security arrested Jose Serafim Sales, a.k.a. "Barrerito" in the Boston area.

"We will not allow the United States to be a safe haven for murderers and human rights violators," said Matthew J. Etre, acting Special Agent-in-Charge for ICE in Boston. The United States has begun the process to return Sales to Brazil to face justice.

Barrerito was the triggerman in the 1991 assassination of a high-profile union leader in the Amazon. On February 2, 1991, Expedito Ribeiro de Souza, the President of the Union of Rural Workers of Rio Maria, was shot twice in the head and once in the back by "Barrerito" as he left union headquarters in Rio Maria, a city in Brazil's northern state of Para. The assassination prompted outrage in Brazil and the international community.

Sales was subsequently convicted of the murder and, in 1995, was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a court in Belem, a port city on the Amazon River. Sales later escaped from prison in March 2000. In June 2000, a local Amazon rancher was convicted of ordering the assassination of the union leader that Barrerito carried out.

In addition to the murder of the trade union president, Sales has been convicted of another murder in the Rio Maria area and is charged with a third homicide in Brazil.

Last Tuesday, US federal agents located Sales in Boston and arrested him without incident. Fingerprints provided by the Brazilian Federal Police matched those taken from the suspect arrested in Boston.

© Jim Kouri

 

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Jim Kouri

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police... (more)

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