New details have emerged following the arrest of Melqui Galvão in Manaus on April 28. The case originated in São Paulo where a 17-year-old athlete accused Galvão of misconduct allegedly occurring during a jiu-jitsu trip to Italy. Investigators say he later attempted to access her phone without permission and tried to discourage her family from pursuing the matter, reportedly offering professional and financial incentives, including help opening a gym abroad.
As the probe expanded, two additional alleged complainants were identified, one reportedly just 12 years old at the time. Police received an audio recording and messages cited as evidence. After a court approved his temporary arrest and search warrants, Galvão surrendered to Amazonas police. Given that he also held a tenured investigator role with the Amazonas Civil Police, the agency suspended him from duties.
Now, BJJDOC has accessed the three minutes that were withheld from the original 13-minute recording and what they reveal is significant. In the audio, a man believed to be Galvão brands his own behavior as inexcusable, appears to admit responsibility and attempts to influence the girl’s father into not pursuing legal action.
The acknowledgment is explicit:
“If you want to see me punished, I believe that you are right, that I have to take a punishment. And the punishment is what you will decide. Today, I am in your hands…”
He goes on to describe his love of teaching and frames continued coaching as something that could be taken from him as a form of consequence, a rhetorical move that places responsibility for outcomes on the father rather than himself.
Galvão also laid out offers to relocate, either elsewhere in Brazil or to the United States, framing his departure as a gesture of accountability:
“If you want me to go back to Manaus, if you want me to go to the United States, I will go to the United States. If you want me to stop and disappear, I will stop and disappear.”
Yet even while seemingly confessing, he was careful to soften the picture of himself:
“I have my problems, but I am not such a bad person either… I know what I did, I know I was wrong.”
At the same time, Galvão appeared to leverage the girl’s jiu-jitsu career as a bargaining element. He proposed she remain on his team at least through the upcoming World Cup where she would receive her black belt, promising to keep distance in the meantime:
“I won’t even touch her, I won’t talk to her if she doesn’t talk to me… If there is a trip, I won’t go on the same flight as her, I won’t stay in the same house as her.”
He further offered to cover travel expenses for a parent or chaperone and suggested transferring ownership of the gym while the family relocated to the United States:
“The gym will be hers. I don’t want anything. You will live in the United States. You will live well.”
The recording closes with what reads as both a plea and a warning:
“If you denounce a lot of people, you will get hurt. I ask you to stop… I just can’t really lose everything I built because I never built this for me, Luis. It was never for me… And I failed.”
