Rio de Janeiro – Argentine lawyer and influencer Agostina Páez was recorded on video uttering racist insults against employees of a bar in Rio de Janeiro. In Brazil, this type of behavior constitutes a serious crime, for which she was detained and, although she was released the same day, her case remains open and she is not allowed to leave the country. The case once again puts the focus on the 13,440 cases pending trial for similar events that the Brazilian Judiciary currently faces.

First modification: 02/08/2026 - 19:18 Last modification: 02/08/2026 - 19:19

Captured and released in less than 24 hours. On February 6, the Brazilian justice system ordered the arrest and subsequent release of the Argentine lawyer and influencer Agostina Páez, accused of racist insults against three employees of a bar in Ipanema, in Rio de Janeiro.

Páez, 29, was recorded on video calling the waiters "monkeys" and imitating the animal. The events occurred on January 14. One of the victims, who filed a complaint with the Police, said that the woman pointed her finger at him and uttered racial insults, calling him “black” in a derogatory and discriminatory way.

The discussion began over an alleged error in paying the bill. The employee decided to check the establishment's security cameras and, at that moment, the woman imitated a monkey and reproduced the primate's sounds.

What this tourist, who claimed that the waiters made obscene gestures and tried to deceive her, did not expect is that racism in Brazil is considered a serious crime, not subject to bail and imprescriptible, since the Federal Constitution came into force on October 5, 1988. The expected penalties range from two to five years in prison and there is also the possibility of applying a fine.

Precautionary measures and judicial turn

For this reason, the Brazilian justice ordered that his passport be confiscated and he be fitted with an electronic anklet. On February 3, the Public Ministry of the State of Rio de Janeiro formalized the complaint against Agostina Páez for racist crimes and requested her imprisonment.

The reason given was that there is a flight risk for the Argentine lawyer. Her behavior also stood out, as Páez reiterated the offensive comments even when she was alerted about the possible consequences.

Agostina Páez is a lawyer and digital influencer. On Instagram he had 40,000 followers on an account that has since been deactivated. On TikTok he has 78,000, but his profile is now restricted.

The case, which is having a strong impact in Brazil, reached its climax when Páez was arrested, on February 6, and taken to the police station.

Her lawyer, Ezequiel Roitman, alleged that his client always cooperated with justice. "He never wanted to evade justice, he never wanted to flee or intimidate witnesses," he said.

Finally, on the same day the judge revoked the prison order and the Argentine woman was released. However, the case is far from being resolved. Páez is still without a passport and with an electronic anklet.

The Argentine lawyer stated that she was unaware that her gestures constituted a crime in Brazil and that it was a "joke" directed at her friends in a playful tone.

Shortly before being arrested, Páez published a video on social networks in which she acknowledged that she was afraid.

"All my rights are being violated, I'm desperate, I'm scared to death. I'm making this video so that the situation I'm going through can be echoed," she said.

The case has already gone viral in Argentina. Some newspapers in the neighboring country have published a kind of manual to guide Argentines who go to Brazil for tourism, explaining exactly what words they should not use and what behaviors they should not have in Brazil so as not to run the risk of being arrested or accused of racism.

The episode coincided with another international controversy linked to racism. The same day that Páez was imprisoned, another controversy broke out in the US, after President Trump published on his social networks a digital piece generated with AI in which the Obamas were portrayed as monkeys.

Its dissemination generated condemnations for the strong racist connotation of the first and only black president of the United States. The White House ended up removing the video and claimed that it had been made “incorrectly” by a member of its staff.

Read alsoScandal in the US due to racist video published by Trump against the Obamas

Increase in processes for racism in Brazil

Racism is considered a crime in Brazil as a result of a long historical struggle against the legacy of slavery and the false idea of ​​"racial democracy", which culminated in the 1988 Constitution and a specific law approved in 1989.

The abolition of slavery, which occurred in 1888, after 350 years of trafficking in Africans, did not include social inclusion policies, creating what sociologists and lawyers define as "structural racism."

Initially, the Caó Law of 1989 criminalized crimes of racism with sentences of one to three years. Later, in 2023, another law equated the crime of racial insult with the crime of racism, with a sentence of two to five years, and established that it is imprescriptible and without bail.

Since then, when interpreting the law, each judge must consider any attitude or treatment towards a minority person or group that causes embarrassment, humiliation, fear or undue exposure to be discriminatory.

In recent years, in Brazil, where 55.5% of the population declares themselves black or Afro-descendant, according to the 2022 census of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, there has been a significant increase in the number of criminal proceedings related to racism and related crimes.

This is data from the Racial Justice Monitoring Panel, an initiative of the National Justice Council in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), updated through November 2025.

Currently, the Brazilian Judiciary has at least 13,440 cases pending trial. The vast majority (97.4%) are processed in the courts of each of the 27 federated states of Brazil, which reflects the incidence of these crimes at the local level. In 2025 alone, more than 7,000 new cases of racism and racial insults were recorded.

Without going any further, in January 2026, a tourist from Rio Grande do Sul was arrested on suspicion of racist insults in Salvador de Bahia. Gisele Madrid Spencer Cesar, 50, was imprisoned after uttering racist insults and spitting at a black street vendor in Pelourinho, in the Historic Center of the Bahian capital. She was later released, but must answer for this crime in court.

The fight against structural racism in the tropical country is constant. Recently, the State Court of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil, suspended a new state law that prohibits admission through racial quotas at public, private and community colleges that receive public funding.

The quota law in federal universities, in force since 2012, establishes a 50% quota for public school students, including quotas for black, mixed-race and indigenous students.

For now, Agostina Páez is free for her crime, but she cannot leave Brazil.

A previous legal dispute in the family environment

According to information from the newspaper La Nación, Agostina Páez is the daughter of transport businessman Mariano Páez, who is at the center of a complex judicial dispute with lawyer Estefanía Budan.

The conflict reached its critical point in November 2025, when Mariano Páez was arrested after being reported by Budan, his ex-partner, for gender violence, which led him to serve more than a month in preventive detention, according to the Argentine website Info del Estero.

Currently, the businessman is free under precautionary measures, which include the use of an electronic anklet.

At the time, Agostina Páez filed a lawsuit against the lawyer, formally accusing her of harassment, defamation and digital violence.

"I never imagined this, she has no criminal record, she has no problems with anyone, I don't know why the cruelty towards her. It's an ordeal," said Agostina's father, who on Saturday, February 7, had planned to travel to Brazil.

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