The minister of the (Supreme Federal Court) limited this Friday (27) the supply of police, government and Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry.
Moraes established the existence of a formally established investigation procedure with documentary support, such as a police investigation or a PIC (criminal investigative procedure, a method used by the Public Prosecutor’s Office).
The decision means a broad limitation on the use of financial movement reports prepared by Coaf. The requirements apply both to documents that the body produces spontaneously (based on alerts issued by banks and other institutions, which are sent to investigative authorities) and to material that is created based on requests from the police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Moraes determined that there must be objective identification of the investigated or potentially sanctionable subject, in addition to thematic relevance between the content of the reports and the object of the investigation.
According to him, “as Coaf is unable to verify the veracity of the thematic relevance indicated at the time of the request, this requirement must be analyzed later when the data is gathered in the investigation or process”.
Furthermore, the minister decided that Coaf reports, known as RIFs (Financial Intelligence Reports), cannot constitute the first or only measure adopted in an investigation and that concrete demonstration of their need is necessary.
Moraes says that authorities note an “epidemic” of the use of Coaf reports in investigations, which have “allowed the normalization of the use of financial intelligence instruments as a means of indiscriminate asset prospecting, opening space for repeated and institutionally corrosive abuses.”
“The structural legitimacy of the production of financial intelligence does not authorize, in itself, any form of unrestricted use of the reports by their recipients”, says Moraes.
The decision was taken, according to him, due to the “high invasive potential of the information accessed and the marked structural asymmetry of power between the State and the citizen.”
The determination takes place in , reported by Moraes, on suspicions of Supreme Court ministers and their families.
The minister ordered that the courts and Public Prosecutor’s Office units be informed of the decision and ordered the director of Coaf, Ricardo Saadi, to comply with it.
The monocratic (individual) decision was taken in a case of general repercussion, which will affect other processes and investigations in the country that deal with the same topic. Moraes asked the Presidency of the Supreme Court for the case to be judged in plenary, on a date that is still undefined.
Investigators and lawyers see the possibility of annulling several other investigations that do not comply with these rules in the country.
The reference process in this case is related to an investigation into irregularities in the importation of horses. The defense of one of those investigated, who is represented by lawyers Danyelle Galvão and Leandro Raca, says that the minister “recognizes the illegality of the RIFs produced in violation of these requirements and the nullity of all evidence derived from them”.
Coaf members see Moraes’ decision as appropriate and say that it sets guidelines for the body to be sued over these reports, without the need for this to go through a judge’s decision.
The norms are also seen as a signal about the path that the Supreme Court can take in defining the matter.
The idea is that control can be carried out throughout the process. In other words, if, later, the Court finds that the RIF request was abusive, the document can be removed from the file and disregarded.
In the Supreme Court, there are at least two currents regarding the need for a judicial decision to request reports from Coaf. The discussion is open in different court processes.
On the one hand, one wing was concerned that the possibilities for investigation would be too restricted if judicial control were established. Moraes was once more aligned with this group.
On the other hand, there are ministers who want rigorous standards of analysis and control, in order to avoid abuses of breaches of confidentiality and what they consider to be a distorted use of the tool, such as persecution and .
The financial intelligence reports produced by the agency, called exchange RIFs, include tax and banking data and are used in various actions with repercussions across the country, such as the coup plot, which led to the conviction of the former president (), those of January 8th and also in operations on criminal factions, such as the (Primeiro Comando da Capital).
