RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Former governors of Rio de Janeiro state Anthony Garotinho and Rosinha Garotinho were arrested on Wednesday for accusations of corruption.

The two former governors, who are a couple, are being investigated for corruption, criminal associations and electoral crimes. A court ordered them to be preventively arrested.

Preventive arrest is an instrument in Brazilian law to arrest an accused person during investigation, when they pose danger to the society, risk of flight or risk of tampering with evidence or coercion of witnesses.

Anthony Garotinho served as Rio governor from 1999 to 2002, and then stepped down to run for president. Rosinha Garotinho was elected in 2002 and then served as governor from 2003 to 2006.

With the arrest of the Garotinhos, Rio state now has three former governors in jail on corruption charges at the same time.

Rosinha Garotinho's successor, Sergio Cabral, has been in jail since late 2016, and is facing a dozen accusations of all sorts of corruption and financial crimes. He is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence for corruption and may be sentenced to another 300 years in the other processes.

Both Anthony and Rosinha Garotinho, who have been transferred to the same prison complex in which Cabral is serving his sentence, denied all the accusations.