A football match in Brazil was brought to a sudden halt over the weekend when police officers wearing bulletproof vests stormed onto the pitch and arrested the referee.
Fans and players were left shocked as the official was hurried away in handcuffs by a group of cops.
The official, Ederson Carlos da Silva, 38, was brandishing a yellow card after a rash tackle in a lower-league Brazilian clash, before he was busted on Sunday in Guarujá.
The 38-year-old is accused of being part of a drug trafficking ring.
Glaucus Silva, the Sao Paulo Civil Police chief in Gauruja, where the match was being played, said that Da Silva’s social media activity allowed cops to track him down.
Silva told Brazilian news outlet g1: “He is a person who has a very active social life, so he was someone who was already on the radar.”
An investigation into a drug-trafficking network was ramped up by authorities in November last year after a truck transporting 450kg of cocaine was seized in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, according to The Daily Mail.
The driver of the truck and the passenger were arrested on the spot. Police then determined that Da Silva was suspected of heading up the drug-trafficking network’s logistics, according to the chief of the Narcotics Investigations Police Station, Eduardo Camargo.
Police are still on the hunt for six other suspects, according to local reports.
Watch the video below..
⏭️ O árbitro Ederson Carlos da Silva, de 38 anos, foi preso no sábado (22) durante uma partida de futebol de várzea no Guarujá (SP). Procurado por tráfico de drogas, ele tinha mandado de prisão preventiva. A abordagem foi gravada e viralizou nas redes sociais.
— AM POST (@portalampost) June 24, 2025