The security team of (), composed mainly of federal police officers, received during the government transition a series of reports from the (Brazilian Intelligence Agency) with information on acts that preceded the 2023 attacks, such as the attempted invasion of the headquarters of on December 12, 2022.
The Abin documents contained information about vehicles that visited the hotel where the then-president-elect was staying, relationships between monitored Bolsonaro militants with a potential aggressor profile and even the report of a man who, when staying in the same place, had tried to access two times the floor Lula was on.
The reports show that there was advance monitoring by the agency on protesters who presented risks to public order. If the material had been worked on, the future tracking of the perpetrators of the attacks on January 8th could have been facilitated.
The reports were produced by a working group chaired by the then head of Lula’s security team, Andrei Rodrigues. In the current government, he was appointed general director of the PF.
It was not public knowledge, until now, that Abin had produced, at the end of 2022, intelligence information sent primarily to Lula’s team within the scope of this GT (working group).
When contacted, the PF and Abin did not respond.
A Sheet had access to the documents and also to messages that show that they reached members of the PT’s security team in the 2022 elections. The report questioned what direction was given to them, but there was no response.
On January 7, 2023, as general director of the PF, Andrei Rodrigues issued a letter in which he warned about possible violent acts in the following days. It did not detail what information supported this prognosis.
As, in testimony during an administrative disciplinary process, the head of the PF said that he did not forward any report with details of the risks to the Public Security Secretariat of the Federal District and that he only made verbal communication at the meeting.
The working group in question was called the Strategic Intelligence GT and was created during the transition, with the participation of members of Abin and the PF, invited by Andrei’s team.
At the time, there was already friction between the current director general and the PF administration, especially with the intelligence directorate, then under the command of Alessandro Moretti. Behind the scenes, Andrei said that it was not possible to trust the PF management under Jair Bolsonaro ().
The agency’s documents present the names of people identified in early December in demonstrations in front of the hotel and, later, recognized as participants in violent actions in Brasília, such as the attempt to , on Christmas Eve 2022, and also in coup acts in buildings of the Three Powers of January 8, 2023.
One of those identified and monitored was Bolsonaro blogger Wellington Sousa, convicted of trying to explode the bomb at the airport. He appears in Abin reports with a potential profile that threatens Lula’s security. Sousa went.
Another mentioned is retired major Cláudio Santa Cruz, from the Military Police of the Federal District, known as one of the leaders of the camp in front of the Army HQ in Brasília. He was arrested in the 9th phase of Operation Lesa Pátria in March 2023.
Lula stayed during the transition at the Brasil 21 Meliá hotel, in the center of the federal capital. Meanwhile, supporters camped in front of the HQ and called for military intervention.
As of December 5, 2022, Bolsonaro supporters began holding protests and patrolling vehicles around the hotel. Intelligence agents produced three reports on these movements.
The report had access to more than 70 pages of these reports, which were disseminated to PF members via WhatsApp.
A first version of an Abin report from December 11, 2022 identified 15 participants in a protest in front of the hotel that took place on December 5.
The event was led by Bolsonaro blogger Oswaldo Eustáquio, and Abin cites choruses of “it won’t go up the ramp” and “only over my coffin”.
A second version of the document, dated December 14 of that year, identified 21 participants in a demonstration, also in front of the hotel, in the early hours of December 12, the date of Lula’s diploma at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court). A.
It was on the 12th that there was an attempt to invade the PF building after Serere Xavante. He had participated in a protest in front of the Meliá hotel.
A latest version of this report is from December 31, 2022, the day before Lula’s inauguration. In this text there is a description of the episode in which a person tried to access the floor where Lula was staying. He ended up stopped by police officers.
The text also mentions a new flow of people in the camp in front of the HQ from December 29th and provides information about vehicle owners who were around the hotel. Abin monitored at least ten vehicles that had been around the Meliá or had links to those camped at the HQ.
One of these vehicles, a white Toyota Hilux pickup truck, made repeated visits to the hotel’s surroundings, the document says. The indigenous Serere Xavante was in this vehicle when he was arrested.
The agency’s investigations also identified another vehicle that would be owned by Minas Gerais, in June 2022.
The PF report on the authorities’ responsibility for security on January 8th.
“The information from Abin, which was vital for preventing the invasion, did not reach all those responsible”, says the text sent by the PF to .
