Brazilian federal police launched an investigation into the existence of an alleged criminal organization believed to have attempted a coup d’état during the 2022 elections.
In a statement on Feb. 8, the Brazilian Ministry of Justice and Public Security said federal agents carried out 33 search and seizure warrants and four preventive arrest orders in eight states and the Federal District as part of the probe, which was authorized by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
In all, 48 precautionary measures other than prison have been enforced, including banning those who are being investigated from contacting other people under investigation, a ban on leaving Brazil, as well as ordering them to surrender their passports within 24 hours, and suspending them from exercising public functions, police said.
“The Federal Police launched Operation Tempus Veritatis to investigate a criminal organization that acted in the attempted coup d’état and [the] abolition of the Democratic Rule of Law, to obtain a political advantage with the maintenance of the then president of the Republic in power,” the statement read.
According to the country’s federal police, which is the Brazilian equivalent of the FBI, the investigation indicates that the “criminal organization” was “divided into nuclei to disseminate fraud in the 2022 presidential elections, even before they were held, in order to enable and legitimize a military intervention, in a digital militia dynamic.”
Although police did not directly name anyone in the statement, a lawyer for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said in a post on the X platform that the former president is one of the targets and has been ordered to forfeit his passport in compliance with the Supreme Court’s decisions.
Mr. Bolsonaro will surrender his passport “in compliance with today’s decisions,” Fabio Wajngarten said. “He has already ordered his direct assistant, who was the target of the same decision … to return to his home in Brasília, in compliance with the order not to maintain contact with the other people being investigated,” he added.
The subjects of the 33 searches police planned to conduct included Mr. Bolsonaro’s 2022 running mate, Gen. Walter Braga Netto; former adviser Gen. Augusto Heleno; former Justice Minister Anderson Torres, and the head of Mr. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party, Valdemar Costa Neto, according to Justice Moraes’s decision made public on Feb. 8.
According to local media reports, among the four preventive arrests were two that targeted Mr. Bolsonaro’s former advisers Filipe Martins and Marcelo Câmara.
A lawyer for Mr. Martins said he was awaiting access to the arrest warrant and supporting evidence before commenting, Reuters reported.
Police said the warrants were executed in the states of Amazonas, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Paraná, Goiás, and the Federal District, where Brasilia is located.
What Happened in Brazil?
After socialist Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva won Brazil’s presidential elections on Oct. 30, 2022, in the closest elections in the country’s modern history, people camped continuously in front of military facilities throughout the country protesting the results and alleging irregularities in the elections, including the deplatforming of right-wing voices and voter fraud.
Many people asked for military intervention or Ecirculated rumors about Mr. da Silva not taking office. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, which oversees elections, maintains that the vote was free and fair, but some conservatives say the court is compromised.
On Jan. 8, 2023, the headquarters of Brazil’s three branches of government—the National Congress, the Presidential Office, and the Supreme Court—were breached by Bolsonaro supporters.
Mr. Bolsonaro, who never conceded defeat after the 2022 elections, was in the United States when thousands of people believed to be his supporters broke through security blockades and breached government buildings. The damage to public property was widespread, with memorabilia, glass panels, and more destroyed and stolen.
While Mr. Bolsonaro has not directly claimed fraud in the election, he did express concern about the nation’s electronic voting system, saying it is prone to fraud.
He also filed a request to annul ballots cast on most electronic voting machines, which was rejected by Justice Moraes, who wrote in his decision that the challenge appeared aimed at incentivizing so-called anti-democratic protest movements and creating tumult.
In June, Brazil’s highest electoral court barred Mr. Bolsonaro from running for political office until 2030 after concluding he abused his power after making unfounded claims about the country’s electronic voting system.
Meanwhile, Mr. da Silva said in a Feb. 8 post on X that it wasn’t his place to comment on the ongoing secret police operation, adding that he hoped “no excess occurs and that the rigor of the law is applied.”
Speaking with a radio station in Minas Gerais on Feb. 8, President Lula said he believes Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters would not have sought to oust him without the former president’s involvement.
“A lot of people should be investigated because it is concrete fact that there was an attempted coup, there was a policy of disrespecting democracy, there was an attempt to destroy something we built so many years ago, which is the democratic process,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
