The two cell phones and the HD of , creator of Luís Pablo’s Blog, were returned by the Federal Police, on Thursday (9). The search and seizure warrant at his home, authorized by the STF (Supreme Federal Court), completed one month.
At the end of last year, Luís Pablo published three texts about an official Court of Justice car that was being used irregularly, for private purposes, by the family of STF minister Flávio Dino.
The Judicial Police Secretariat of the STF saw the content on the internet, which showed photos of the car and reported the license plates, and pointed out weaknesses in the security of the minister and his family. The body also concluded, according to documents obtained by Sheetthat the fact that Luís Pablo presented the images “evidences planning and execution of actions aimed at persecuting the vehicle used by the minister, in order to invade and disturb his privacy and restrict his ability to move around, by clandestinely monitoring his movements and private activities”.
The alert from the Judicial Police resulted in Luís Pablo being prosecuted on suspicion of the crime of persecution, the penalty for which is imprisonment from 6 months to 2 years, in addition to a fine. On March 10, as part of this investigation, the blogger went, by order of Minister Alexandre de Moraes. The investigation is still ongoing and information about its progress has not been released.
The measure against the blogger provoked a reaction from journalism entities and also from the OAB (Brazilian Bar Association), as part of article 5 of the Constitution protects the confidentiality of the source, when necessary for professional practice. Article 220, when dealing with social communication, also adds that information cannot suffer any restriction or censorship “of a political, ideological or artistic nature”.
For Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism), the episode involves criminalization of journalistic activity. In a note released after the search warrant was executed, the entity noted that, in a democracy, it is “healthy to demand transparency regarding the possible irregular use of public resources, and no journalistic investigation of this nature can be criminalized without clear material evidence.” Luís Pablo, 40, is regularly registered as a journalist.
After the repercussion, Dino stated in a note that there was no irregularity in the use of the TJ’s car, pointing to resolutions from the CNJ (National Council of Justice) that regulate cooperation between the institutional security bodies of the Judiciary.
When asking the STF for authorization to search the journalist’s house, the PF cited two reports from the G1 portal, published in 2017, which deal with an operation that targeted an alleged criminal organization formed by bloggers from Maranhão. Luís Pablo was one of the targets.
At the time, the suspicion was that a federal police officer obtained information about confidential investigations and passed it on to bloggers, who then extorted the targets of the investigations, such as businesspeople and politicians, so that the matter was not published on websites or so that the content was removed from the air. Everyone involved rejects the suspicions.
The 2017 operation generated a complaint filed the following year by the Federal Public Ministry against ten people, including Luís Pablo, his brother Hilton Ferreira Neto, 38, and his father, Luís Assis Cardoso Silva de Almeida, who died in 2025 at the age of 66. The complaint was received in May 2019 and has not yet been resolved.
In the process, lawyer Raul Guilherme Silva Costa, responsible for Luís Pablo’s defense, says that the MPF’s accusations are fragile, based on the PF’s conclusions. It also states that the blogger began to be investigated “without any indication of committing a crime, just for the simple fact of his professional practice as a journalist.”
The MPF also narrates four situations in which the blogger allegedly participated in an extortion scheme using information he had obtained. “In relation to me, there was nothing to prove it,” said Luís Pablo.
The situations involve six businessmen and a former mayor in Maranhão. They appear as witnesses for the MPF and must give testimony at the trial hearings that will begin in May. The case is being processed in the 2nd Criminal Court of the Federal Court in Maranhão.
In addition to this case, Luís Pablo responds to more than a hundred other legal proceedings. The vast majority involve accusations of defamation and slander. He states that he has already been convicted in part of the cases in the first instance, but that he has filed an appeal.
“I have been working with investigative journalism in the political area for years and it is common for public agents to take legal action when they feel upset,” he said.
Before becoming the target of the STF, the blog’s slogan was “the most controversial in Maranhão”. With the repercussion it gained after the episode involving Flávio Dino, it became “independent journalism that bothers power”.
Last month, Luís Pablo was the target of a court injunction that forced him to remove a publication in which he displayed an image of an “alleged member of the security team” of the vice-governor of Maranhão, (PT), entering the official residence with a backpack. Luís Pablo didn’t say what was inside the backpack, but he suggested that something might be wrong.
“The question remains: what would be inside that suitcase? (…) The most curious thing is that the man enters with the backpack and leaves without it. So what do you have to say about that?”, said an excerpt from the post.
According to judge Lívia Maria da Graça Costa Aguiar, from the 10th Special Civil and Consumer Relations Court, the blogger’s conduct “exceeds the limit of the purpose of active journalism”.
“The journalist’s statements go beyond common sense, reasonableness, moderation, which the right to the press or information for society must respect in order to bring relevant information to society”, says an excerpt from the judge’s decision, accepting Camarão’s request, which is a remnant of the political group of Flávio Dino, governor of Maranhão from 2015 to 2022.
Luís Pablo removed the publication and, in its place, placed a photo of himself with tape covering his mouth, suggesting censorship. He added that the site “will appeal in search of justice.”
