A Brazilian drug lord was arrested by police in Hungary on Tuesday, two years after he ‘died’ of Covid.
Sergio Roberto de Carvalho had been living under a fake name in Hungary for the last two years, according to authorities.
In August 2020, the international drug trafficker was arrested in Spain under the name of Paul Wouter after authorities seized a cocaine shipment.
Carvalho left custody after paying his bail and faked his death by asking his lawyer to send a death certificate to Spanish authorities, informing them that he had died of Covid.
Local news at the time reported that he had been cremated.
Carvalho then assumed a different identity under the alias Guillermo Flores Díaz and lived in Hungary ever since.
Brazilian authorities were alerted of the drug lord’s movements after they matched his fingerprints to ones shared by Spanish authorities on an international database.
Last week, a joint operation between Hungarian and Brazilian authorities revealed Carvalho’s hideout in a countryside mansion.
He was then arrested on 21 June.
Carvalho allegedly masterminded a large intercontinental drug trafficking network.
“Sergio Roberto de Carvalho… is considered one of the largest international traffickers alive,” Brazilian Federal Police said in a press release.
He has been accused of moving around 45 tonnes of drugs from Brazil to several European countries from 2017 to 2021, according to Brazilian news reports.