BOSTON — He was in the country illegally on an expired visa. He was walking around Massachusetts, prosecutors say, with a gun on his hip. And when he pulled off an alleged $200,000 stickup on a Framingham cash courier last November, he didn't stick around long enough for anyone in state government to ask any inconvenient questions.
Helbert Oliveira, 47, a Brazilian national, was arrested this week — in Florida — and charged with Hobbs Act armed robbery and conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act armed robbery, U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley and Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Division, announced Thursday. The arrest is part of the FBI's Operation Summer Heat 2.0 — an initiative Foley's office describes as an effort to "crush violent crime in our communities."
Oliveira faces up to 20 years in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine on each count. He made his initial appearance Thursday in federal court in the Southern District of Florida and will be brought to Boston at a later date.
The heist
The alleged robbery happened in Framingham last November. According to the charging documents, Oliveira and Curt Porcher targeted a cash courier delivering money to a Framingham business. Porcher allegedly served as the getaway driver in a rented car. Oliveira, prosecutors say, pointed a firearm at the courier and walked off with roughly $200,000 in cash.
Surveillance footage released with the charges captures the parking-lot getaway — a dark Toyota Corolla, driver's door swung open, a figure in dark clothing climbing in with the bag. The robbery itself drew no local news coverage at the time.
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The wheelman
Porcher was charged first. A federal grand jury indicted him April 22, 2026 on the same Hobbs Act armed robbery and conspiracy counts. Oliveira, meanwhile, went in the wind. He remained a fugitive until this week, when FBI Boston — working with the FBI Miami Division and the Marlborough Police Department — tracked him to Florida.
The pattern
Oliveira is the latest name in a pattern MDN has been documenting almost weekly.
Yesterday, ICE Boston nabbed another Brazilian illegal immigrant in Wrentham whose prior arrests included home invasion, kidnapping for extortion, and masked armed robbery.
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On Wednesday, Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux ignored an ICE detainer and freed an illegal-immigrant gun suspect, calling the federal agency "amateur hour."
On July 3, a Massachusetts-protected illegal immigrant killed a Pennsylvania state trooper in a fiery highway crash after receiving a Massachusetts commercial driver's license under the Work and Family Mobility Act.
In June, a Hingham court ignored an ICE detainer and freed a Guatemalan illegal immigrant accused of molesting a child. Federal agents re-arrested him 25 days later.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Andrea Campbell vowed to defend in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants as the DOJ sues Massachusetts to end it. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley said ICE agents "belong in jail" at a Chelsea event with families she said were "traumatized" by deportation. And Massachusetts is now spending 60% more on lawyers for illegal immigrants than it was a year ago.
That's the environment Oliveira was allegedly walking around in with a firearm. It took a federal indictment and an arrest in another state to bring him back into the system.
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