ICE removes 2 Brazilians, 1 convicted of drug trafficking and the other of murdering a city official

WASHINGTON — Two Brazilian men wanted for crimes committed in their home country were removed last week by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

Marseno Augusto Martins, 51, and Evandro Sergio Pais-Franca, 57, were turned over to Brazilian law enforcement authorities upon their respective arrivals at Belo Horizonte Airport in Brazil on Aug. 17 and 18.

Martins was convicted of transnational drug trafficking on Aug. 23, 2002, in Belo Horizonte criminal federal court and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Before reporting to prison to serve the sentence, he fled to the United States. He was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents in November 2004 and ordered removed to Brazil by an immigration judge later that month. He filed numerous appeals over years and then breached his immigration bond in 2008, evading detection until he was ultimately captured July 8, 2015, in Los Angeles by ERO.

Pais is wanted on an Interpol red notice for the murder of the mayor of Nacip Raydan in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He was convicted in absentia in November 2012 and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Pais was located and arrested May 12, 2015, by ERO Boston and granted voluntary departure under safeguard by an immigration judge on July 8.

Since Oct. 1, 2009, ERO has removed more than 1,150 foreign fugitives from the United States who were sought in their native countries for serious crimes, including kidnapping, rape and murder. ERO works with HSI’s Office of International Operations, foreign consular offices in the United States, and Interpol to identify foreign fugitives illegally present in the United States.