Influencer sought after Porsche kills farmworker on Rio highway

A farmworker riding a motorcycle died instantly on Thursday when a Porsche traveling at high speed struck him on BR-116, a federal highway cutting through Teresópolis, about 40 miles from Rio de Janeiro. Adilson Lima was 47. The luxury car's driver walked away unharmed.

Rio de Janeiro's civil police are now hunting an influencer they believe was behind the wheel. The man has no official name yet in police records, but investigators have identified him through social media—he runs a business selling raffle tickets and giving away expensive cars and motorcycles to followers online. He was already wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant for traffic crimes: driving without a license, participating in illegal street races. When officers arrived at the crash scene on BR-116 at the 70-kilometer marker in the Três Córregos neighborhood, a man presented himself as the driver. But witnesses told detectives something different. Multiple people said they had seen the influencer behind the wheel of the Porsche moments before the collision, speeding past a gas station in the area.

This is not his first brush with the law. He is already a defendant in an ongoing case for unlicensed driving, street racing, inciting crime, and endangering public safety. In 2022 he was arrested, but the sentence was suspended in favor of court-ordered restrictions: his social media accounts were to be shut down, and he was banned from traveling. He violated those conditions. On the very day of the farmworker's death, the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice requested his arrest for breaking the restrictions. The state prosecutor's office had gone further, asking the court to lock him up on the grounds that he has been posting photographs of himself driving cars, riding motorcycles, and traveling abroad—direct evidence, they argued, that he is flouting the court's orders.

Judge Marcela Assad Caram Januthe Tavares of the Criminal Court in Teresópolis signed the arrest order, writing that the man's conduct "places public order and safety at risk, given that he is evidently operating a motor vehicle without proper licensing, endangering people's physical integrity, committing crimes repeatedly." The Porsche Boxster involved in the crash was impounded.

The case echoes a similar tragedy in São Paulo. On Monday of that same week, a 21-year-old motorcycle rider named Pedro Kaique Ventura Figueiredo was hit and killed by a Porsche on Avenida Interlagos in the city's south zone. The driver, Igor Ferreira Sauceda, 27, a businessman, has been charged with triple homicide—a charge that carries the heaviest penalties under Brazilian law because it includes aggravating factors. The prosecutor's office alleges that Sauceda killed Pedro deliberately, and that his motive was trivial: the young man had damaged Sauceda's car in a traffic collision moments before, and Sauceda, angered, decided to run him down. The charge also includes allegations that Sauceda acted with cruelty and deliberately obstructed the victim's ability to defend himself.

Two deaths. Two Porsches. Two drivers with apparent disregard for traffic laws and the lives of people on motorcycles. In Rio, a farmworker named Adilson Lima will not come home. In São Paulo, a young man named Pedro Kaique will not either. The search for the Rio influencer continues.