A Paraguayan judge ordered preventive prison this Friday for businesswoman Dalia López, who was captured yesterday after remaining at large for six years for allegedly managing the fake passports with which former Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho Gaúcho and his brother entered the country in 2020, local media reported. Penal Guarantees Judge Raúl Esteban Florentin resolved that the businesswoman will remain for 10 days in the Department of Judicial Police of Asunción to later be transferred to the Women's Penitentiary Complex in the city of Emboscada (center), reported the newspaper Última Hora. López, who had been at large since March 2020, was captured on Thursday in a raid on a luxurious home in Asunción after being accused of the alleged “mediate production and use of public documents with false content and criminal association,” according to the Prosecutor's Office. During a hearing on the imposition of measures, the businesswoman's defense requested house arrest, which was rejected by the judge. The accused's lawyer, Adián Salas, told radio 780 AM that to prevent his client from going to prison, they offered a property valued at “more than a million dollars” as a guarantee. Salas told journalists that the woman remained at large from justice because she allegedly received “threats” by telephone, the origin of which she did not specify. According to the local medium ABC Color, López's defense also argued a “delicate state of health” of the accused. The 55-year-old businesswoman had hired Ronaldinho to participate in a charity event in Paraguay in 2020. The former footballer and his brother entered on March 4, 2020, with original Paraguayan passports that were altered under the names of Ronaldo de Assis and his brother Roberto de Assis, for which they were detained and spent half a year in prison. Ronaldinho and his brother were in jail for almost a month at the Police's Special Grouping in Asunción and after paying a joint bail of 1,600,000 dollars, a judge granted them house arrest in a luxurious hotel in the capital. The brothers returned to Brazil on August 25 after paying 200,000 dollars as “social reparation” and having their processes extinguished, according to the ruling of the case judge. In 2020, the Prosecutor's Office pointed to López as a presumed member of a criminal organization structured to “facilitate the preparation and use of identity documents and passports with false content,” with the aim of “generating legal businesses and/or patrimonial benefits”.
