The minister, of the (Supreme Federal Court), ordered that the investigation be carried out by the intelligence structure of the Civil Police of Pernambuco.
The measure was taken on Friday (30), after a report showed that the municipal secretary of Political and Social Articulation, Gustavo Queiroz Monteiro, 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.
The accusation of espionage between the mayor () and the governor (). They should face each other this year.
The process is being carried out in secrecy, but Gilmar’s office released information about the decision in a note sent to the press. According to the report, the investigation should verify whether there was a federal criminal or electoral infraction whose investigation is the responsibility of the institution.
According to the office, at this time, there is no attempt to determine the direct responsibility of senior state executive authorities for authorship or omission.
The rapporteur highlighted, however, that the facts reported are serious and could put fundamental precepts at risk, such as the inviolability of privacy, legality and impersonality.
The minister also determined, in the same decision, the suspension of an investigation by Gaeco (Special Action Group for the Repression of Organized Crime) of the Public Ministry of Pernambuco against municipal agents.
According to the minister’s office, the case was presented to the STF by three public office holders at City Hall, who claimed that they were the target of investigative measures in a disproportionate and generic manner.
Gilmar considered that there was a misuse of purpose in the MP’s procedure which, according to the civil servants, generated measures such as breaches of fiscal secrecy and subpoenas to testify as investigated, without individualizing conduct.
The investigation involved alleged irregularities in two price registration minutes prepared by intermunicipal consortia.
News of an alleged clandestine political surveillance operation conducted by the Civil Police of Pernambuco, with improper use of tracking and facial recognition technology to monitor members of the city council’s top echelon, was also added to the case file.
According to his office, when evaluating the case, Gilmar recognized the existence of elements that indicate a distortion of Gaeco’s investigative procedure.
He pointed out, for example, that the subpoenas to collect statements were issued without individualizing the conduct attributed to each employee and were not accompanied by judicial decisions.
“For the minister, by simultaneously and standardized requesting sensitive property information from more than twenty municipal secretaries, without specifying conduct or evidentiary elements that would justify the measure, the Public Prosecutor’s Office incurred evidentiary fishing”, informed the office.
Mayor João Campos classified the episode as persecution.
“I wanted to tell you that all this will not go unpunished. Because not everything goes to contest an election. Not everything goes within an institution as serious as the Civil Police, which is over 200 years old. I will take all appropriate measures in court,” he said.
He also claimed to be 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 defended the work of the Civil Police and said that the investigative role was fulfilled “within the law”. He also stated that the complaint received was serious and that “no one is above the law”. “We need, of course, to always fight corruption.”
