The secret operation was called “Green and yellow dagger” and would have aimed to assassinate Lula, newly elected president of Brazil at the end of 2022: four soldiers, including a former collaborator of Jair Bolsonaro, were arrested Tuesday, suspected of having instigated an “coup d’état”.
These arrests took place in the middle of the G20 summit. A police source indicated that the arrested suspects were mobilized to secure the event in Rio de Janeiro, which the army subsequently denied.
Four of the five suspects, a reserve general and three lieutenant colonels, were “military personnel who have completed special forces training”who have “used their high level of technical-military knowledge” to foment this project aimed at “prevent the legitimately elected government from taking office in 2022”.
One of them, Brigadier General Mario Fernandes, held a high-ranking position at the time in the general secretariat of the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro, Lula’s far-right predecessor and defeated rival.
The plan planned to kill Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as well as the elected vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, on December 15, 2022, two weeks before their inauguration, the Federal Police said in a press release.
The plan would then have been to arrest and then execute Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, a powerful magistrate hated by Mr. Bolsonaro.
According to the police investigation report to which AFP had access, “poisoning” was one of the options favored by the alleged conspirators.
Left-wing leader Lula was elected at the end of October 2022, beating Jair Bolsonaro by a narrow head in the second round.
According to investigators, this putschist project had begun to be developed on November 12 of that same year, at the home of General Walter Braga Netto, vice-presidential candidate on Mr. Bolsonaro’s ticket, for whom he had been minister of Defense.
Other investigations
Other investigations focus on alleged plans to prevent Lula’s return to power.

Jaïr Bolsonaro, then president of Brazil, reviews the national guard, at the headquarters of the Army, in Brasilia, August 25, 2022 / EVARISTO SA / AFP/Archives
One of them directly targets Jair Bolsonaro, suspected of involvement in a plan mobilizing, before the 2022 presidential election, ministers and high-ranking soldiers to ensure that the champion of the far right would remain in power. at the end of the vote.
Investigators reported a draft decree aimed at calling new elections and arresting Judge Moraes, who presided over the Superior Electoral Court during the 2022 presidential election.
The ex-president, who denies everything and says he is a victim of “political persecution”is also under investigation into his role as an alleged instigator of the riots of January 8, 2023 in Brasilia.
That day, a week after Lula’s inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaristas ransacked the headquarters of institutions in the capital, on the Square of the Three Powers, where the presidential palace of Planalto, the Parliament and the Court are located. supreme.
In this same square, a man blew himself up in front of the Supreme Court on November 13, after trying in vain to enter the building. Facts are treated as a possibility “terrorist attack” by the federal police.
This individual was a candidate in 2020 for the post of municipal councilor in his city in southern Brazil under the colors of the Liberal Party (PL), the political party of Jair Bolsonaro.

Judge of the Supreme Court of Brazil Alexandre de Moraes in Brasilia, June 22, 2023 / EVARISTO SA / AFP/Archives
Investigators discussed possible « liens » between this attempted attack and the riots of 2023.
The Bolsonaro camp has evoked an act ” isolated “ due to a « fou ». On the social network « dialogue », « union » et « pacification nationale » in an ultra-polarized country for years.