Understand who the 'Black Kids' are who would execute Bolsonaro's coup, according to the PF

Any mission, anywhere, anytime, any way.” The motto of the “Black Kids”, as the soldiers of the Army Special Operations Command are known, is engraved in the history of the main names in the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Former ministers Eduardo Pazuello (Health), Luiz Eduardo Ramos (Casa Civil), retired colonel Élcio Franco, who was Pazuello's number 2 in the ministry, and lieutenant colonel Mauro Cid, former aide-de-camp of the Presidency, joined the ranks of the Force's elite group.

According to investigations by the Federal Police (PF) into a criminal organization responsible for acting in an attempted coup d'état and abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, the former head of the Army's Land Operations Command (Coter), General Estevam Theóphilo, target of operations this Thursday, 8th, would have agreed with the idea of ​​a coup in a conversation with the former president. Theóphilo would be “operationally responsible” for enlisting the Army’s Special Forces to arrest Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

“In addition to being operationally responsible for the employment of the troops if the intervention measure were to be implemented, the evidence already gathered indicates that the Army Special Forces (the so-called Black Kids) would be responsible for carrying out the arrest of the minister of the Federal Supreme Court. Alexandre de Moraes as soon as the presidential decree was signed”, says this Thursday’s decision, which authorized the PF operation.

The “Black Kids” are trained to participate in high-risk operations using guerrilla tactics, escape planning and terrorism. Considered the Army's combat elite, military personnel are specialists in sabotage and encouragement of popular uprisings (popular insurgency). They wear black caps on operations, which is why they got their informal name.

Army Colonel Marcelo Costa Câmara, former special advisor to the Presidency and appointed as a member of the nucleus that fed Bolsonaro with information that would help him consummate the coup d'état, was a “Black Kid”.

He is also being investigated in the jewelry case, revealed in a series of exclusive reports from Estadãoand was cited by the PF as a person of interest in the investigation investigating signs of tampering with Jair Bolsonaro's vaccination card.

Colonel Marcelo Câmara's lawyer, Eduardo Kuntz, stated that he went to Brasília to deal with the case and that he has not yet had contact with the process. “I have already made an electronic petition asking for access and I hope you will not have any difficulties accessing the files this time. My client is in prison and having access to the files is essential so that we can take the appropriate measures,” he said.

Another person being investigated and targeted in this Thursday's operation, who was part of the Army's elite group, is Mario Fernandes, deputy head of the Bolsonaro government's General Secretariat. According to the PF, he was part of a group of high-ranking Army officers who aimed to mobilize the barracks in favor of the coup.