☀ Domingo Brief — RIP Pope Francis

Each Sunday, take two minutes to catch key stories and opportunities shaping Latin America.

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Latinometrics
April 27, 2025 • Reading Time: 3 minutes

Welcome back to the Domingo Brief! This week, we’re following Brazil’s latest president to be arrested, Grupo Modelo’s big investment, and more.

Trivia of the Week 🎯

Precisely half of you were correct in guessing Javier Mascherano as the Latin American footballer who has received the most yellow cards in the history of the FIFA World Cup. Mascherano, an Argentinean player who has played for impressive teams the world over — like Barcelona, Corinthians, and Liverpool — currently coaches Inter Miami (home to another fellow Argentine). He received his final World Cup yellow in 2018 when his team lost to eventual champions France. Interestingly, half of the top-6 in this unique metric come from Latin America, including Cafu (Brazil), Rafa Marquez (Mexico), and Diego Maradona (Argentina).

Each week, tune back in for the answer to the previous week’s trivia question. No cheating!

Which Latin American country has expressed openness to incarcerating deported US citizens?

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🇦🇷 Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, passed away on Easter Monday at the age of 88. The first Latin American pope in history, Francis was born in Buenos Aires in 1936 and became the head of the Catholic Church in 2013. He was known as a progressive leader who pushed the church to be more inclusive towards sexual minorities and who sought to demonstrate to others the dangers of climate change, right-wing populism, and anti-immigration rhetoric. The death of Francis raises the question of whether his successor will be similarly progressive or instead usher in a return to the more conservative and traditional branches of Catholicism.

🇧🇷 Fernando Collor de Mello, who served between 1990-1992 as the first democratically-elected president in Brazil’s post-dictatorship history, has been arrested for allegedly receiving over $9M in bribes from state-owned oil giant Petrobras. The charges against him, namely money laundering and corruption, carry a nine-year sentence. Collor famously resigned from office in December 1992 in a failed bid to stop his certain impeachment and removal from office. He later served as senator for his home state of Alagoas from 2007-2023, during which time he allegedly received the Petrobras bribes.

Latinometrics: Collor is famously the second former Brazilian president to be arrested and incarcerated, after sitting president Lula da Silva (who was convicted on the same charges and served 580 days in prison in 2018-2019). Collor’s 1992 impeachment set a precedent which was later used against Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s protege, in 2016 (though Rousseff did not resign like Collor and was instead removed from office). Former president Jair Bolsonaro was also formally charged with crimes in February. Essentially, Brazil’s presidents tend to bounce between the Planalto and prison.

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