Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho has been arrested in Paraguay for allegedly attempting to enter the country with an adulterated passport.
Gilberto Fleitas, the head of the investigations unit of the Paraguayan police, said Ronaldinho and his brother were taken into custody just hours after a judge refused to ratify a prosecutor’s proposal for an alternative punishment.
“The detention order has been carried out,” Fleitas told Reuters.
TV pictures showed the pair being taken in a police vehicle from the Sheraton hotel in Asuncion to a police station on the outskirts of the city.
Former Barcelona and AC Milan forward Ronaldinho and his brother and business manager Roberto Assis arrived in Paraguay on Wednesday and were questioned by law enforcement after they were found in possession of adulterated Paraguayan passports.
(Image: ANTONIO SCORZA/AFP/Getty Images)
Paraguay’s interior minister Euclides Acevedo said earlier this week that Ronaldinho and his brother had cooperated in the investigation and believed they were tricked by a man who was accompanying them, who has also been arrested.
Ronaldinho hung up his boots in 2018 after a hugely successful career during which he won 13 trophies at club level as well as the 2002 World Cup with Brazil.
He also won the Ballon d’Or in 2005 and is generally regarded as one of the most talented players of his generation.
He is currently without a Brazilian passport, however, after he received an environmental fine in 2018 when he illegally built a fishing trap at Lake Guaiba without proper licensing in a permanent preservation area.
(Image: Nathalia Aguilar/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
He failed to pay the whopping $8.5m fine and thus Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice stopped him from being able to leave the country.
He is still regarded as a hero in his country, however, and is an ambassador for tourism, saying at his unveiling in the job: “Tourism is very important for generating jobs and regaining our image internationally.”
