The one of investigating Piauí magazine and journalists Allan de Abreu and Roberto Alexandre dos Santos after the publication of a complaint involving the delegate Carlos Henrique Cotait.
The delegate, investigated by the corporation’s corregedoria on suspicion of hacker illegal services in a police operation, was removed from the post on August 29, 2024, by order of the Secretary of Public Security ,.
The magazine dealt with the relationship between Cotait, at the time ahead of the Araçatuba (SP) Criminal Investigations), and Hacker Patrick César da Silva Brito in a February 2023 report.
According to the investigation, Brito investigated the targets of Operation X X by invasion of computers, cell phones and accounts on social networks, at the behest of the delegate and his team.
In December 2022, a Civil Police delegate even asked the court to prohibit the publication of the report, claiming to be a fake news told by the hacker. The request was denied.
Also according to Piauí, two Deic researchers subordinates Cotait began investigating the magazine two months after the publication of the report, as part of an inquiry into the hacker.
In addition to public data on the publisher Alvinegra, which publishes the magazine, the report would have personal data from journalist Allan de Abreu, such as CPF, affiliation and residential address. The inquiry was given as completed and sent to the Federal Court in October last year until, on May 19, the federal requested the return of the investigation to the State Justice.
the investigation also involves a freelance journalist, Roberto Alexandre dos Santos, who collaborated with the report with findings in Araçatuba.
According to the magazine, the journalist gave up signing the material to avoid persecution, but Cotait found that he had participated in the report.
A week after the delegate’s removal, the Civil Police served a search and seizure warrant at Santos’ house. Piauí says the content of a seized cell phone was used as a pretext to get the warrant.
In the device, which belonged to Igor Antonio Venâncio, a member of the (first command of the capital), there was a conversation with the journalist in which Venancio spoke about the charter of a bus that would take women from prisoners to a demonstration in Brasilia.
In the previous month, the CCP member had been in charge of a community leader to look for businessmen from the city who could bear the charter, and this leadership knew Santos and passed his contact. Venâncio began to press the journalist to pay the bus rental. Santos told Piauí that he did not pay.
In search of Santos’ house, were seized cell phone and notebook of the freelancer. Also found were conversations of the journalist with the hacker about the repercussion of the report and a file with a copy of the text, still in the editing phase. From there, researcher Paulo Henrique Ianella concluded that the article had three authors: Santos, the hacker and a policeman, Edison Luís Rodrigues, disaffected Cotait.
He built an organogram, in which also appears the director of writing of Piauí, André Petry. Based on the report, delegate José Luís Silva ABonizio launched an inquiry against Santos for a crime of obstruction of justice.
On April 7, Allan de Abreu received an subpoena. By the lawyer’s guidance, he refused to testify.
Lawyer Luis Francisco Carvalho Filho, responsible for the defense of Piauí, said that the inquiry is “a blatant and unusual attack on freedom of journalistic information.” He criticized the “cunning instrumentalization of police power that tries to transform journalistic report into a crime of justice obstruction.”
Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism) also criticized what it called the use of police positions to intimidate journalists.
The Press Office of the SSP (Secretariat of Public Security) of São Paulo confirmed in a statement that the police inquiry established by the Specialized Division of Criminal Investigations of Araçatuba investigates journalists Allan de Abreu and Roberto Alexandre dos Santos with the support of Gaeco (Special Action Group on Organized Crime) of the São Paulo Public Prosecution Service.
“The SSP stresses that it does not condone with any form of abuse of authority and reaffirms its commitment to freedom of the press, constitutional rights – including the confidentiality of source – and the transparency of legal procedures.” The agency did not respond to the motivation to include them in the investigations or if the Cotait delegate is related to the investigation requests.
This Friday (6), after the publication of a report on the financial movements of a Deic de São Paulo delegate. The investigation was classified as “attempted censorship” and the creation of an “intimidating environment” by press freedom defense agencies, such as Fenaj (National Federation of Journalists).
The delegate in question, Fábio Pinheiro Lopes, former director of Deic, was one of the police cited in the allegations of Vinícius Gritzbach, accused of money laundering for, killed in November last year.
