From a humble childhood in Belo Horizonte to the courts of Italy, the lawyer, jurist and writer tells Erga Mundum where he came from, why he never gave up on his dreams, the pillar that kept him going and made him believe it was possible, why he writes and why he decided to create a world newspaper for Brazilians.
“It is possible. Believe it: it is possible.”
A childhood in poverty, the three pillars who changed his life (his mother, his uncle and his first wife), a legal career between two worlds and why the truth needs someone to tell it
A lawyer in Brazil and Italy, a jurist and a writer, Luiz Scarpelli founded Erga Mundum in October 2026. In this interview, he speaks for the first time about his whole journey, from the very beginning.
Millions of Brazilians live, study and work abroad, or dream of doing so. Millions more carry in their surname the story of a family that crossed the ocean. For all of them, reliable information about the world is worth as much as a document.
Erga Mundum is born with a simple rule: we only publish what can be verified. Every headline carries the name of the original outlet and a link to the original story. Sponsored content is always identified. Whenever a story involves the founder or companies linked to him, the reader will be told.
“Erga mundum” means “before the world”. That is how we intend to work: openly, with sources, evidence and respect for those who read us.
Where does the story of Luiz Scarpelli begin?
It begins ahead of time. I was born premature, at six and a half months, weighing six hundred grams. That was my first battle, and the one who fought for me was my mother. She always believed in me, from that very first day, and that belief gave me strength my whole life.
My family was very humble. I was a poor child in Belo Horizonte, and I truly believed I would never leave the city. I could not imagine even visiting Contagem, which is right next door.
You started working early.
Very early. As a child, I sold homemade ice pops and washed cars. At twelve, I was already an office boy.
“The one who fought for me, from the very first day, was my mother.”Luiz Scarpelli
Where does the surname Scarpelli come from?
From Calabria. My great-grandfather, who was also called Luiz Scarpelli, was born in 1872 in the province of Cosenza and crossed the ocean like so many Italians of that time. I grew up hearing about those roots. I remember my grandfather’s small farm, with oil lamps and a wood-burning stove. Many years later, that same story would take me back to Italy.
Who are the three pillars of your life?
My mother, my uncle Fábio and Ana Paula. They were the three people who held me up, each in their own time, and believed in me when I still had nothing to show.
And it all begins with your mother.
It does. She fought for me before I could fight for myself. I was born premature, at six and a half months, weighing six hundred grams. Our family was very humble, but she never lacked one certainty: that I would succeed in life.
“Her love for me and her belief that I would succeed in life gave me great strength.”Luiz Scarpelli, on his mother
How was she present in your childhood?
With tenderness, love and protection. She protected me from bullying and from everyone who doubted me since I was a child. It was also she who gave me the nickname “the lawyer of impossible causes”, and I carry it with pride, because it came from the person who believed in me most.
Who was your uncle Fábio?
My best friend growing up. He was my mother’s brother and lived with my grandmother. He was the one who took me to the Mineirão stadium to watch Cruzeiro, from when I was little. Brilliant, he spoke four or five languages and prepared seventeen or eighteen of my grandmother’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren for university entrance exams and civil-service exams, in every subject.
He would drive out to pick up a student, teach the lesson and then drive the student back home. He was the guarantor for anyone who needed to rent a home, the helping hand of the whole family. On Saturdays there was Italian spaghetti with polpette at his house, and everyone wanted to be invited.
“My boy, life goes by far too fast. Make the most of it while you can.”Fábio, the uncle
And how did he change your life?
With one sentence: “You have to study.” When I married, at 21, I had only an eighth-grade education. I completed adult education and high school after I was married, and he was the one who prepared me for the university entrance exam. I passed.
Who is Ana Paula?
My first wife. We married when I was 21 and were together for about thirty years. When I married, I had only an eighth-grade education. She was by my side through adult education, the entrance exam, the two times I had to put my law degree on hold for lack of money, and the day I graduated, at 33.
What did she mean to your journey?
Encouragement, support and faith. She encouraged me a great deal and always believed in me, even in the years when nothing seemed to work out. Had I married someone without character, someone who was not a fighter and a supporter, my story would have been a different one.
“She always believed in me. She always supported me in everything.”Luiz Scarpelli, on Ana Paula
And today?
Today we are no longer married, but we are great friends. The gratitude I feel for her, for my mother and for my uncle Fábio is forever. I wanted to succeed, and I fought to succeed in life, because those three people, my pillars, did not deserve to be let down.
Before practising law, you did a bit of everything.
I did. After being an office boy, I worked as a shop assistant, a nightclub security guard and a door-to-door salesman of dental products. I was a sales representative, owned a dental supply shop and a video rental store. I was also a lathe operator at Fiat.
Each of those jobs taught me something no university teaches: to treat people well, to listen to the client, to sell honestly and never to be ashamed of starting over. I still use all of it today.
Who stood by your side along the way?
My three pillars: my mother, my uncle Fábio and Ana Paula. I got where I am through my own effort, but very much because I did not want to let down those who believed in me.
What was law school like?
I started late, at PUC Minas, where I was taught by Professor Cármen Lúcia. I had to put my studies on hold twice for lack of money. I finished at FUMEC, in Belo Horizonte, and graduated at 33. I was in no hurry to get there. I was certain that I would.
After graduating, I practised law in Brazil for about ten years for large companies. Contracts became my specialty, and they still are today.
“I did not want to let down those who believed in me.”Luiz Scarpelli
What was the greatest victory of your career?
It was for my uncle Fábio, in 2014. He fell ill with a serious, incurable disease, and he had a life insurance policy that paid out only upon death. Every lawyer he consulted said nothing could be done. I studied the case and developed an unprecedented argument: if the disease was fatal and incurable, the benefit should be paid in advance, during his lifetime, so that he could live with dignity for the time he had left.
The judge granted the injunction within days, and a settlement followed soon after. The money arrived in time to pay for nurses, caregivers and a driver until the end. I never made this case public. The pain was too great.
And after that?
Very hard years followed. Between 2012 and 2015 my family went through serious illnesses and losses, one after another, and my uncle Fábio passed away. It was the hardest period of my life.
But his words stayed with me: life goes by far too fast. I was afraid of flying, a fear I had inherited from my mother. After he died, I lost that fear and began to travel. I have now been to some three hundred cities in 32 countries, always visiting museums, cathedrals and places where history happened.
Is that how you came to Europe?
It is. I went to Europe after those years and there I saw at first hand the struggle of Brazilians trying to have their Italian citizenship recognised. Years-long queues at the consulates, conflicting information, people being deceived. I decided to register as a lawyer in Italy and open the way through the courts.
“The only certainty is that we will die. Why give up on trying something that is possible?”Luiz Scarpelli
What was your work in Italy like?
I lived there for about ten years, in Treviso among other cities, and registered with the Florence Bar. In early 2018, I was one of the first lawyers to file citizenship lawsuits in Rome, against the consulate queues. Those cases helped shape the case law that later benefited tens of thousands of Italian-Brazilians.
Over those years, more than ten thousand clients had their citizenship recognised through my work. I won a late recognition of paternity twenty years on, when the time limit was one year and two consulates had already refused. I also obtained, in court, the reconstruction of an ancestor’s birth certificate, and the family had its citizenship recognised by the Court of Rome.
“Thousands of families, back to their roots.”Luiz Scarpelli
You also studied in Italy.
I earned two second-level master’s degrees at Sapienza University of Rome: Corruption and the Institutional System, in 2021, and Clinical Criminology, Legal Psychology and Forensic Psychiatry, in 2022, cum laude. Today I am admitted as a lawyer in Brazil, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and registered with the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, in Brussels.
In 2025 Italy changed its citizenship law. What did you do?
On 28 March 2025, when the decree was issued, I publicly announced that I would stop filing new citizenship lawsuits until there was a concrete position from the courts or the government. It would not have been honest to sell clients a hope I could not guarantee. Today I take on only specific cases.
The debate is now before the European courts, in Strasbourg and Luxembourg, and Erga Mundum will follow every step, with the documents and the sources, as it did in its launch report.
What remains of those ten years?
The pride of having given so many families back a piece of their history. And a hard lesson: in a market that grew very fast, opportunists also appeared, fake profiles, fake advisory services. I fought against that, and it came at a price.
What was that price?
The attacks on social media. Those who fight shady business make enemies, and I made them. For a long time I responded to every provocation. Today I no longer respond in public: what needs to be settled, I take to the courts, which is the right place.
My name, my surname, is worth more than my life. I want to honour the Scarpelli family, and I want the relatives who have yet to be born to find the truth about me, not the lie.
Is that why you write?
That too. In Italy I published I Corrotti and Gli Psicopatici, and in Brazil Mentira and Verdade (Lies and Truth), about my fight against the online gangs that run scams in the citizenship market. I am now preparing the Scarpelli Collection, in 24 volumes. The last will be called “So, was it worth it?”, and I will only write it once all the others have been published.
“Everyone who is here today will not be here a hundred years from now. I write for those who come after.”Luiz Scarpelli
What is the Organismo Scarpelli?
It is the structure that brings together everything I do, and it was born precisely out of persecution. First came the books, and with them the need for a publishing house. Then I studied marketing to build my own websites. I expanded my legal practice in Brazil and created a service to defend companies and professionals attacked on Reclame Aqui, Brazil’s best-known complaints website, so that others do not go through what I went through.
Four branches and a single purpose: to protect those who build and to shorten the path for those who are just starting out.
And the Tríade Scarpelli?
I had three pillars in my life: my mother, my uncle and Ana Paula. Three people who believed in me when I still had nothing. That is what the Tríade is: I want to be that person for those who have no one. To help those who are starting out, to lift those who have stalled and to raise up those who have been attacked.
“The first thing people have to learn is to believe in themselves.”Luiz Scarpelli
Why does a lawyer decide to create a newspaper?
Because for ten years I saw the damage that false information does. I saw families lose money and time because of wrong news, promises sold as certainties and fake profiles posing as experts. Millions of Brazilians live, study and work abroad, and millions more carry in their surname the story of those who crossed the ocean. For all of them, reliable information is worth as much as a document.
“Reliable information is worth as much as a document.”Luiz Scarpelli
What does Erga Mundum promise its readers?
A simple rule: we only publish what can be verified. Every headline carries the name of the outlet and a link to the original story. The news comes from the leading newspapers of 33 countries and is updated every hour. And no exposé is published without investigation, documentary evidence and the right of reply.
And when the story is about the founder himself?
The reader will be told, as in this interview. And I take no part in investigating or in deciding to publish exposés involving competitors, former clients or parties to my cases. “Erga mundum” means “before the world”. That is how I want to work: openly.
Here, news is not bought, not commissioned and not silenced. It is proven.
Written by the founder on the day the newspaper went live, 23 October 2026, and published at the top of every page of Erga Mundum.
What are the next steps?
I have returned to practising law in Brazil, in every area I know how to do well: contracts, family and inheritance law, civil law, crimes against honour, cybercrime and reputation protection. I take on anyone, in any city, through electronic court proceedings. Little by little, I want to step away from Italian citizenship litigation, which brought me great joy and also great strain.
And I want Erga Mundum to grow, with its own reporting, interviews with authorities from Brazil, Italy and Europe, and a community of readers who trust what they read.
What message do you leave the reader?
That it is possible. I was a poor child who thought he would never leave Belo Horizonte, and today I am a lawyer in four European countries and have travelled the world. Persist, insist, be stubborn. Something good always happens. Believe in yourself and love yourself first. It is possible. Believe it: it is possible.
“Here, news is not bought, not commissioned and not silenced. It is proven.”