Chilean Businessman Arrested After Racist Scandal Faces Multiple Charges in Brazil for Airborne Threats and Racial Insults

Original article: Empresario chileno detenido tras escándalo racista es acusado en Brasil por atentado aéreo, injuria racial y amenazas

The Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office formally filed a multiple complaint on Wednesday against Chilean businessman Germán Andrés Naranjo Maldini, who was arrested at São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport following a violent incident involving racist and homophobic insults aboard a Latam flight. The former executive at the fishing company Landeo has been in preventive detention since May 15 and now faces charges including assaulting air transportation security, racial insults, threats, contempt, and resisting arrest.

The incident that led to his arrest, which has been captured in widely circulated videos, occurred on the aircraft when Naranjo Maldini directed xenophobic, homophobic, and racist slurs at at least one crew member.

Specifically, the events trace back to the early hours of May 11. According to the Federal Public Ministry’s complaint, while the plane was flying over the city of Fortaleza, Naranjo Maldini attempted to force open an emergency exit. The crew managed to contain him in time, but he resorted to a series of insults in Spanish directed at the flight attendants.

He not only insulted them based on their nationality by calling them “inferior Brazilians,” but also used racist and homophobic expressions. To one crew member, he shouted “monkey” while mimicking a primate and later claimed that being gay “is a problem.”

The scene was captured in a video shared on social media, showing the Chilean businessman struggling and spitting insults while other passengers looked on in disbelief.

Naranjo was not immediately detained. After landing in Frankfurt, Germany, he continued his journey and returned to Brazil days later. However, on May 15, upon arriving back at Guarulhos terminal, he was met by Federal Police. Before his arrest, he sought refuge in a Latam VIP lounge, where, it is detailed in the accusation, he again hurled racist insults—this time at waitstaff and a cleaning assistant in the area.

When officers attempted to restrain him, the Chilean resisted vigorously, struggled, and during transport to the police station, threatened the officers’ lives with statements like “I will make sure they all get killed.” He was ultimately subdued and remanded to preventive detention, where he remains today, as reported by Bio Bío Chile.

The defense for the accused argued that Naranjo has struggled with a psychiatric disorder for many years and that at the time of the incidents, he was “not in his right mind”. However, the Brazilian Prosecutor’s Office has requested that his detention be upheld, considering there is a risk of flight and the severity of the charges—especially the threat to air safety for attempting to open an emergency exit mid-flight—warrants exemplary punishment.

Meanwhile, the court has ruled that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that the businessman requires immediate clinical attention in a specialized facility.

It is worth noting that in Chile, the executive is facing a complaint for the crime of bribery or active corruption of a public official and has been linked to at least three prior occasions involving out-of-control behaviors with police involvement.

Brazil Punishes Racial Insults with Sentences Ranging from Two to Five Years

In Brazil, racial insults are punishable by two to five years of imprisonment plus fines, but with the addition of the other five charges filed against him, the sentence could significantly exceed this range.

This scandal adds to a series of arrests of foreigners for racism in the South American country. The most public case involved an Argentine lawyer who insulted a waiter in Rio de Janeiro, calling him a “black piece of shit.” Now, Germán Naranjo’s name joins that blacklist, with an aggravating circumstance: his attempt to endanger hundreds of passengers due to a racist outburst.