Latest update December 31st, 2024 3:30 AM
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Local cops praised for nabbing ‘one of Brazil’s most wanted’
Euclides Erian Da Silva
The Guyana Police Force has come in for high praise from their Brazilian counterparts for the capture of a man described as one of Brazil’s most wanted.
Last week local police handed over Euclid Da Silva, who also goes by the name Euclides Erian Da Silva, to Brazilian authorities at the Guyana/Brazil border.
The man was held here on suspicions of being in possession of a forged Guyana birth certificate through which he managed to obtain a Guyana passport. They later learnt that he was a fugitive from Brazil, after contacting their counterparts in the neighbouring country.
A senior police official had told this newspaper that Da Silva was arrested in Brazil in 1998 on drug trafficking and money laundering charges but later escaped from custody after being sentenced to 29 years in prison.
Local police, acting on their belief that Da Silva did not prove that he was Guyanese, then commenced preparations to send him back to Brazil where an international warrant had been issued for his arrest.
There were attempts to block the move after attorney Nigel Hughes secured an order from the High Court to stay his expulsion from Guyana.
However, police are claiming that by the time the order could have been effected, Da Silva was already in the custody of the Brazilian authorities.
According to a release from Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, Interpol Brazil, on behalf of their National Central Bureau, has expressed gratitude to the Guyana Police Force “for the priceless help of the National Central Bureau Georgetown” and complimented “the vital Guyanese initiative” which led to the quick arrest of Euclides Erian Da Silva, one of Brazil’s most wanted fugitives.
“Brazilian national Euclides Erian Da Silva was arrested by the police in Georgetown on August 13, 2010, and handed over to the Brazilian authorities on August 17, 2010,” the police statement said.
But family members are adamant that he is a born Guyanese who was residing in Brazil in his formative years.
“My husband is a Guyanese. He born at Annai and his mother is Maria Joseph. His father is Milton Saigo, Guyanese, all from the Rupununi,” his wife Rozana Melville had told this newspaper.
She said that she met Da Silva around 1990 in Brazil, where she too was residing after fleeing the Rupununi in the wake of the 1969 Uprising.
She said that Da Silva managed to obtain Brazilian papers through his mother who was married to a Brazilian.
“He never take out a Brazilian passport, he only take out an ID,” she said.
She said that they cohabitated in Boa Vista where their first two children were born. Their third child was born in Guyana.
Da Silva is now serving out his time in a Boa Vista prison.
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