Former Police Investigator Melqui Galvão Was Transported to São Paulo in a Police Car Trunk — The Former Cop Is Now the Cargo

He arrived at Guarulhos International Airport on the night of May 7 with what Brazilian press described as a fixed and defiant gaze. Melqui Galvão spent years with the Amazonas Civil Police, training law enforcement in defensive techniques across the country.

For most of his adult life, Galvão ran two careers at once: a civil police investigator's posting with PC-AM, and one of the better jiu-jitsu coaching rosters his generation produced. His son Mica Galvão. ADCC 2022 gold medalist Diogo Reis. Thalison Soares. Fabricio Andrey. Brenda Larissa. The sport treated him like load-bearing infrastructure. He was assumed to be there.

Then came the end of April.

The 8th Women's Defense Police Station in São Paulo had opened an investigation after a female student filed a formal complaint. The alleged conduct happened during an international competition trip. By the time a 30-day provisional arrest warrant came down from the 2nd Court for Crimes Against Children and Adolescents, additional victims had come forward.

The charges: rape of vulnerable persons, sexual harassment, threats, and unauthorized access to electronic devices. Galvão turned himself in April 28. The Amazonas Civil Police suspended him from the force and placed him in a separate cell at the General Delegacy in Manaus while investigators executed search and seizure warrants at addresses in Jundiaí, São Paulo. Phones and computers went with them.

The Audio

What broke this case open was not a whistleblower. It was Galvão's own voice.

After the initial complaints were filed, he sent a 13-to-16-minute audio message to one victim's family. According to BJJEE, which reported on the recording, the audio contains a partial admission: Galvão described touching a student he believed to be sleeping — "maybe three seconds at most." He said he was "totally regretful" and that "nothing justifies my behavior."

Then he made a business offer.

He proposed covering the family's travel expenses. He offered to set up the athlete with a jiu-jitsu academy partnership in the United States. He warned that going public would harm "100 people" who depended on his organization. He asked the athlete to remain in the program until she earned her black belt, promising to maintain his distance.

The family gave the audio to police.

The sequence is worth sitting with: something happened that he knew was wrong, he tried to buy silence with a U.S. academy partnership, and the family handed the recording directly to investigators. He spent a career training athletes to anticipate their opponent's next move. He did not anticipate this one.

What's Emerged Since

Brenda Larissa — one of his most accomplished athletes — publicly described 14 years of abuse, beginning when she was a child. She is now a professional competitor with a documented career built entirely inside the program where, she says, the abuse was occurring throughout.

A 17-year-old athlete reported being abused during an international competition in Rome in February 2026 — three months before the arrest. The allegation involves medication administered before a competition, then unwanted contact while she was incapacitated.

A third victim reported that abuse began when she was 12 years old and continued for over a decade.

These are named athletes with documented competitive records. The pattern spans more than a decade, multiple victims, and at least one international competition venue in Italy. That is not what a single incident looks like.

Mica Galvão

There is no clean way to write this section.

Micael Galvão is 22. He's been one of the most dominant grapplers on the planet for the last several years, and he trained under his father from childhood. He issued a statement after the arrest saying he is still "processing" what has happened — that his gratitude and love for Melqui are "real and unchanged," while adding: "As a person, I repudiate any form of harassment or violence against women and children — this is a value I carry with me and that admits no exception."

He subsequently dissolved BJJ College and announced a new team, Mika Jiu-Jitsu, before putting that project on hold. Diogo Reis, who won ADCC 2022 inside Melqui's program, has left as well.

Mica doesn't owe the public a clean verdict on his father. What he said about rejecting harassment and violence was direct. The grief, the disorientation, the dismantling of something he has spent his whole life inside — he gets to sit with that privately. He is 22, and his world changed in a way no competition result prepared him for.

The Transfer

The transfer to São Paulo came by court order — the case is based there. On May 7, a LATAM flight from Manaus landed at Guarulhos International Airport at approximately 9:35 PM. BJJEE, which first covered the transfer, reported that Galvão was transported in a police car trunk en route after landing. He was processed for forensics and remanded into São Paulo's justice system.

His background as a law enforcement officer means he falls under legal provisions separating police and public servants accused of crimes from the general population. He got the cop protections on the way in.

On April 29, the IBJJF and CBJJ issued a joint permanent ban — we covered that here. Not suspended pending review. Permanent. The sport's governing bodies moved after law enforcement — but they moved.

The Former Investigator

Galvão spent years as a civil police investigator in Amazonas before stepping back to focus on coaching. He knows how criminal proceedings work. He knows what investigators look for. He knows what kinds of audio recordings become evidence, what kinds of admissions are damaging, how a case gets built from the ground up.

He knows all of this because he used to be on the other side of it.

He is in São Paulo now. Prosecutors have his voice on a recording where he partially admits to the conduct and offers money to make the rest disappear. The athletes he developed are named in the case file. The organization he built is coming apart.

He landed at Guarulhos staring straight ahead and said nothing. He knew how a transfer worked. Now he knows how it feels from the other side.

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