A Spanish national was arrested by Brazil’s federal police at São Paulo’s Guarulhos international airport early on Wednesday, accused of racially insulting ground staff. The woman had arrived on a Latam flight from the north-eastern city of São Luís and was taken into custody as she disembarked, according to a police statement.

Passengers told officers that the woman became irritated by a delay in exiting the aircraft, which the airline attributed to a temporary shortage of covered stairs during rain. Witness accounts, cited by Brazilian media, say she complained that the hold-up was because “there are only monkeys outside.” The remark was directed at workers responsible for unloading baggage, police said. Latam issued a statement saying there was “no justification for the aggression” and that it condemns all forms of racism and discrimination.

Brazil maintains some of Latin America’s strictest anti-racism legislation. Racial insult carries a prison sentence of two to five years plus a fine, and a 2023 legal reform reclassified the offence as non-bailable and imprescriptible. The Spanish woman remains in custody awaiting a court hearing to determine her status; no statement from her defence has been reported.

The arrest is the latest in a series of high-profile detentions of foreign tourists on similar grounds. In January, Argentine lawyer Agostina Páez was filmed mimicking a monkey at a waiter in a Rio de Janeiro nightclub; she was barred from leaving Brazil before returning to Argentina in April, where she was received by a senator allied with President Javier Milei. In May, another Argentine, Eduardo Ignacio Murias, was indicted in Minas Gerais after allegedly photographing a child and sharing the images with racist messages, and a Chilean businessman was arrested at Guarulhos for racial and homophobic slurs against a flight crew. The federal police investigation into the Spanish woman’s case is ongoing.