The accusation of spying on a City Hall secretary became another chapter in the friction between the mayor () and the governor (). They should face each other this year.
As on Sunday (25), Gustavo Queiroz Monteiro, municipal secretary of Political and Social Coordination, was followed by civil police officers from August to October 2025. The agents accompanied the car used by him and his brother, Eduardo, and exchanged messages in a group. In September, a tracker was installed in the vehicle, without a court order.
In a press conference on Monday (26), the Secretary of Social Defense of Pernambuco, Alessandro Carvalho, confirmed that monitoring was carried out based on an anonymous complaint that “amounts could be being delivered as bribes in contracts signed by Recife City Hall with various suppliers”.
Because an anonymous complaint was made, according to him, there was a preliminary check, but no package or money was found to be delivered, as had been reported, and, therefore, the case was closed. He reiterated that there was no need for a court order to install the tracker.
On social media, however, Mayor João Campos classified the episode as a persecution.
“I wanted to tell you that all of this will not go unpunished. It won’t. Because everything isn’t worth it to contest an election. Everything isn’t worth it within an institution as serious as the Civil Police, which is over 200 years old. I want to tell you that I will take all appropriate measures in Brazilian justice,” he stated.
He also said he has been the target of a “large network of hate” and politically motivated investigations since 2024, citing that an investigation into daycare centers archived by the police was reopened during the election period and then archived again after his re-election that year.
Raquel Lyra, on the other hand, preferred not to answer the matter directly. In a post this Tuesday (27), the governor listed the actions of her administration and wrote: “Here the pen doesn’t make noise. It delivers. It resolves. We use it the right way: to govern Pernambuco and take care of all Pernambuco residents, without leaving anyone behind.”
In recent months, the mayor and governor have faced crises in their administrations. At the beginning of January, João Campos became the target of an impeachment request in the City Council, accused of irregularly interfering in the result of a public competition for Recife prosecutor.
Furthermore, the PSB, the party of which he is president, has employed since 2023 a former secretary of the government of Pernambuco who is accused by the Federal Public Ministry of passive corruption and who was .
Raquel Lyra, in turn, suffered wear and tear as her family’s bus company, Logo Caruaruense, (Empresa Pernambucana de Transporte Intermunicipal), a state government agency. She was also the target of an impeachment request due to the case.
