They plotted to kill Lula, 5 arrested in G20 security

Brazilian police have arrested four security soldiers at the G20 summit over an alleged plot to assassinate then-president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a 2022 “coup”, a federal police source said. The four “were arrested in Rio, where they were participating in the security operation for the G20 leaders’ meeting,” said the source, who added that a police officer was also taken into custody.

A statement from the Brazilian federal police said the suspects were “mostly soldiers with special forces training”, but made no mention of whether they were part of the G20 summit’s security deployment. They were arrested on the second day of the G20, in an operation aimed at “dismantling a criminal organization responsible for planning a coup to prevent the installation of the legitimately elected government in the 2022 elections”.

Security for the event is tight, with troops in armored vehicles lining the streets of the usually relaxed seaside town. Today’s arrests come less than a week after a failed bomb attack on the Supreme Court by a suspected far-right extremist, who committed suicide in the process.

The alleged plot against Lula was carried out on December 15, 2022 – a few weeks before the president returned to office in early 2023 – and involved “the assassination of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates”, the statement said. The alleged coup plotters, who also planned to assassinate a Supreme Court judge, then intended to set up a “crisis cabinet” with themselves in it, police added.

Brazilian media reports that the judge they wanted to kill was Alexandre de Moraes, who has drawn the ire of the right for his investigations into the far right and for shutting down the social network X for 40 days in a fight with its owner Elon Musk on misinformation.

According to authorities, the suspects possessed “advanced operational military” know-how and had given their plot the code name “Green and Yellow Dagger”, in apparent reference to the colors of the Brazilian flag. The statement adds that they are potentially accused of attempting to overthrow the government through violence, planning a coup and being part of a criminal organization.

In October 2022, Lula defeated Jair Bolsonaro, who had held office for only one term, to regain power after a decade of absence. Thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, in an insurrection reminiscent of the 2021 storming of the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters. Several investigations have been opened into the Brasilia riots and other alleged plots to prevent Lula from taking office. The man who carried out a bomb attack on the Supreme Court last week, killing himself, is also suspected of being involved in the 2023 riots.