Suspect in slay of NYC art pro held in Brazil

The suspect in the brutal killing of a prominent Manhattan art dealer in Rio de Janeiro earlier this week has been arrested, Brazilian police said Thursday.

Brent Sikkema, 75, was found dead at an apartment he owned in Rio de Janeiro’s affluent neighborhood of Jardim Botanico on Monday. Authorities said he had been stabbed 18 times.

His alleged killer, identified by Brazilian media as 30-yearold Alejandro Triana Tevez, was arrested by Rio cops in the early hours of Thursday some 500 miles northwest of the city, according to a news release.

Tevez, who’s Cuban, has lived in Brazil since 2022, when he applied for asylum, according to Brazilian news site G1. Authorities say he was arrested in a gas station between the cities of Uberaba and Uberlândia, in the neighboring state of Minas Gerais.

Investigators said he was found with $3,000 that had belonged to Sikkema (photo).

While the incident is being initially investigated as a possible theft leading to homicide, police are not ruling out other theories.

According to a detective who leads the Rio de Janeiro police homicide unit, preliminary investigation suggests Trevez traveled to Rio from São Paulo “specifically to commit this crime.” The two cities are approximately 270 miles apart.

Detective Felipe Curi told CBN Rio radio that investigators believe the suspect had “some kind of privileged information.”

Security camera footage appears to show a man in a car watching Sikkema’s home for 14 hours on Saturday. The man is then seen entering the apartment in the early hours of Sunday, where he stayed for 14 minutes, according to the video. There was no sign of forced entry, Curi said.

He returned to his car just before 4 a.m. and was seen removing a pair of gloves — on a day when the temperature in Rio ranged from 77 to 84 degrees.

Authorities are also looking into the possibility the two men knew each other.

“Information has emerged suggesting the perpetrator and victim were acquaintances,” police spokesman Alexandre Herdy told reporters Thursday.