A dispatch from the governor of Rio de Janeiro, Cláudio Castro (PL), is in the sights of the Federal Police (PF) and is considered the first fingerprint of the head of the Rio de Janeiro Executive in the investigation into the tentacles of the Comando Vermelho (CV) inside the Guanabara Palace.
The act, signed by Castro at the last minute, forced the publication of an extraordinary edition of the Official State Gazette on September 3 of this year, on the afternoon of the day that former deputy TH Jóias, Thiego Raimundo dos Santos Silva, had been arrested by the PF on suspicion of money laundering, purchasing weapons and drones and suspicious personal relationships with the heads of the faction in the State.
At the time, the governor hurriedly dismissed the then state secretary of Sport and Leisure, Rafael Picciani (MDB), son and main political heir of the late politician Jorge Picciani, who was arrested by the PF when he was president of Alerj, as well as Rodrigo Bacellar, current president of the House, arrested this Wednesday (3). THE Estadão contacted the government of Rio de Janeiro and Alerj and is awaiting feedback.
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The maneuver, according to sources linked to the investigation heard by the Estadãoaimed to diplomatically force TH Jóias to leave his position, thus preventing Alerj from being forced to vote on maintaining or relaxing the prison, as required by the rules in the State.
The explanation is this: TH Jóias was the party’s second deputy. With the death of deputy Otoni de Paula Pai, in May last year, a vacancy was created in Parliament. The first substitute, Rafael Picciani, however, decided not to take on the position and moved to Castro’s secretariat, paving the way for TH to take over. With Picciani’s return, the arrested deputy would automatically lose his seat in the House – thus, there would be no reason to evaluate his arrest.
The movement, made in a quick coordination between the authorities, is seen as an attempt to circumvent a political process that could expose the House in two ways, depending on the result of the vote, which had 45 days to take place.
The first way would be to go ahead with an unpopular measure: removing from prison a parliamentarian who had already been arrested for drug trafficking and who, at that time, was suspected of having . The other option, if the arrest were maintained, could have more disastrous impacts and end with a break with the CV’s branch within the Legislature, sending a message of destroying bridges with drug leaders.
On the day of all the movement, Castro even went on social media to talk about the maneuver, now seen as suspicious by the PF. “By my determination, state deputy Rafael Picciani is resuming his mandate in the Legislative Assembly. He replaces state deputy TH Joias, arrested today in a joint action by the Civil and Federal police and the Public Ministry”, published the governor, who appears alongside TH in several photos published on the internet.
In the decision that determined the arrest of Rodrigo Bacellar, president of Alerj, this Wednesday, 3rd, minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), implies that the entire procedure, endorsed and signed by Castro, is related to the need to guarantee votes for the 2026 elections.
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The governor’s order is classified as a “swift regimental maneuver” which, as an immediate effect, aimed to carry out “damage control” by removing the parliamentarian from his post, “aimed at separating the image of Alerj from the investigated TH Joias, who, as is public knowledge, was a political ally and a constant presence at institutional events of the Executive and Legislative Powers”.
In a second moment, say the investigators, the strategy implemented with this “obstructive action” would be to obtain “the maintenance of the link between these political agents and the Comando Vermelho, the faction responsible for the greatest territorial control of the State of Rio de Janeiro, which translates into millions of votes in the upcoming electoral election”.
Finally, Moraes ordered the Rio government to provide all access information to the official online systems in which documents relating to Picciani’s dismissal from the position of Secretary of State were processed, “with time, responsible user, access logs and other available data”. The STF minister also ordered the Official State Press to provide the data and times relating to the request for the creation of the extraordinary edition on September 3, 2024.
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