An arrest warrant issued by the São Paulo courts in March 2025 remains unserved. The man named on that warrant, André Luís Siqueira Pinheiro, known in the Brazilian jiu-jitsu community as André Motoca, carries a final conviction for SA, with a 15-year sentence in a closed-regime prison. Yet for a period he was not in Brazil facing justice. He was on competition mats in the United Arab Emirates.
BJJ Girls Magazine, the Brazilian outlet that has been tracking the case, uncovered that Motoca had been traveling internationally and entering jiu-jitsu tournaments while the warrant sat ignored on the National Council of Justice portal. The magazine’s reporting drew attention to a situation that event organizers and federations had apparently failed to catch, a man sentenced to more than a decade behind bars was stepping onto competition mats as though no court had ever ruled against him.
The investigation eventually prompted action. Palm Sports, the organization associated with the athlete, opened its own inquiry and, following that process, suspended Motoca. He has since returned to Brazil. But the warrant on the CNJ portal, according to publicly available records, remains pending. No arrest has been carried out.
The conviction is not in question. Brazilian courts issued a definitive ruling. The sentence stands at 15 years. The distance between that legal reality and what was unfolding on competition mats in the UAE is what BJJ Girls Magazine brought into public view.
In fact, he’s still registered to compete under the UAEJJF in the upcoming masters tournament on the 15th of May.
The jiu-jitsu community, both in Brazil and abroad, has taken notice. The sport lacks a unified global mechanism to screen competitors against conviction databases, and this case illustrates how easily someone can cross borders and enter tournaments without any automatic flag being raised by the organizations running those events.
André Motoca is back in Brazil. The warrant remains open. The CNJ portal continues to list it as unserved.
