How two reporters found 63 political candidates wanted by Brazilian courts
Reader comments sparked a journalistic investigation that led to the arrests of 36 candidates for Brazil’s upcoming local elections. These candidates, who had outstanding warrants for charges ranging from child support arrears to murder, were vying for votes on the streets and on social networks.
“We received a complaint that a candidate was on the run for raping a vulnerable person. We investigated and found nothing to corroborate this information. However, since then , we were thinking, ‘OK, he’s not on the run, but are there any candidates on the run?'” G1 reporter Camila da Silva told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). told.
The majority of cases (46) were related to child support debts…but there were 14 criminal cases, including four for theft or robbery, three for murder, and two for rape of a vulnerable person. He is wanted.
The reader’s comment was buried in one of the 5,569 automated articles G1 published with a list of candidates for each Brazilian municipality. In response, Silva and reporter Judith Cipreste conducted a data journalism investigation and identified 63 candidates with outstanding arrest warrants.
According to Silva, editor Vitor Solano used data from the National Bank of Arrest Warrants (BNMP, Portuguese acronym) managed by the National Council of Justice (CNJ), and information from the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE). ) is available on the Candidacy Disclosure and Election Account Portal (DivulgaCand) maintained by ).
“I already had experience with BNMP and knew there were some issues,” Cypreste told LJR. “There is no way to download arrest warrants nationally, so you have to download them state by state.”
The reporter said he was stuck analyzing São Paulo’s records because the download limit is 30,000 lines and the state has more than 60,000 outstanding arrest warrants.
While Cipreste was consulting with the National Judicial Council to obtain data from São Paulo, she began analyzing data from other states using the Python programming language. From there, the first common names appeared in warrant and candidate databases, indicating the existence of dozens of candidates wanted by the court.
Silva also checked whether the names in the two databases actually corresponded to the same person. In the process, she discovered that three of the warrants from the Federal District Court were issued by the office of the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Minister Alexandre de Moraes. Since Mr. Moraes is the rapporteur of the STF investigation investigating the intrusion into the headquarters of three government departments, reporters immediately suspected that they were involved in the undemocratic acts that occurred in Brasilia on January 8, 2023. I suspected that they were the people accused.
They confirmed that the subjects of these arrest warrants are accused of the January 8 attack and are parliamentary candidates for municipalities in the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and São Paulo. They heard from each state’s civil and federal police departments, as well as the defense of candidates required by the court, and published the first article of the investigation on September 14th. One of the candidates was arrested that afternoon. The remaining two were arrested a few days later.
Agility and accuracy
In the meantime, the National Judicial Council sent a warrant to Cipreste from the state of São Paulo and completed the collection of data from the National Arrest Warrant Bank. Subsequently, we were able to collate 302,509 arrest warrants and 461,564 candidacy records to finally complete the national analysis. They found 108 cases where a person’s name and date of birth were the same in both databases.
However, this information was not sufficient to confirm the identity of the candidate sought by the court. Also, according to a recent decision by the Superior Electoral Court, DivulgaCand will no longer publish candidates’ Personal Taxpayer Registration (CPF) numbers.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to perform several cross-checks that could have been performed in an easier way, including this one,” Cipreste said. “The only identification numbers (available on DivulgaCand) are the voter registration card and the TSE internal registration number. These can be used to perform other types of match checks within your own database.”
“The regional impact of this is very important. For me, this was the most difficult part because we had to do all this very quickly without compromising accuracy.” — G1 Reporter Camila da Silva
Silva explained that candidate documents available in the High Electoral Court’s database have personal tax registration numbers and other personal information redacted. However, a criminal record certificate submitted by a candidate to the High Electoral Court can be authenticated by the institution that issued it. In most cases, the certification revealed the candidate’s personal tax registration number, which reporters compared to the arrest warrant number. However, Silva stressed that there are also warrants without individual taxpayer registration numbers, in which case other verification methods need to be found.
While they were checking the data, some warrants were removed from the national arrest warrant database and some candidates were deemed unfit to serve by the electoral justice system. Reporters revealed that in addition to the three candidates wanted by the courts in connection with undemocratic conduct on January 8, 2023, an additional 60 political candidates across the country have outstanding arrest warrants. I confirmed that
The article explains that the majority of cases (46) are related to child support debts and involve a type of arrest that is immediately canceled after the outstanding amount is paid. However, there were 14 criminal cases, including 4 for theft or robbery, 3 for murder, 2 for rape of a vulnerable person, 2 for theft, 1 for assault, and 1 for criminal association. (one case was not prosecuted).
G1 journalists from across the country participated in the investigation, meeting and interviewing all candidates and their political parties.
“We were very concerned about not attributing the crime to anyone and not bringing these people to justice, because that’s not the focus of the article. Unwanted individuals are included. This fact-checking was essential because the potential impact of this on the region would be huge.For me, this was the most difficult part, because all this without losing precision. Because we had to do it very quickly,” Silva said.
On September 19, 2024, G1 announced that 19 people wanted by the courts between the 17th and 19th were released after federal police published G1’s first article on candidates with outstanding arrest warrants. It was reported that the candidate had been arrested.
According to the Federal Police, as of September 20, there are backlogs in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná, Maranhão, Acre, Rio Grande do Sul, Sergipe, Roraima, and Mato Grosso. 36 candidates with warrants were arrested. Sulu and Santa Catarina.
LJR contacted federal police to question the connection between the G1 article and the arrests made in recent days. Federal police responded: “We do not comment on ongoing investigations or future actions.”
As of September 21, the candidates sought by the court cannot be arrested. Under Brazilian law, candidates can only be detained or arrested for “clear crimes” during the 15 days leading up to an election.
exposed reality
The G1 article explains that according to Brazilian law, only those who have been convicted by a final judgment or collective decision by judges are prohibited from participating in elections. Therefore, those with outstanding arrest warrants are not prevented from becoming candidates. However, a person wanted by a court may be arrested at any time, and the possibility of arrest will make it difficult for him or her to take office.
“A lot of people will think the impact of this article is arrests. For me… (the impact is) an argument for courts to be more informed and for data to be used by public bodies in a really efficient way. and to start a discussion about how there are loopholes in the law.” — G1 Reporter Judith Cipreste.
“Pretrial detention can last for months and can jeopardize the act of holding public office, for example in the case of a mayor, so voters know who they are voting for. That is important,” election law expert attorney Alberto Rollo told G1.
Cipreste said the research conducted by Silva and Cipreste points to a lack of communication in Brazil’s judicial system.
One example is the case of a candidate running for office for the third time with an outstanding arrest warrant, which was uncovered through an investigation. He has a pre-trial warrant issued in 1997 and ran for City Council in 2016, 2020 and 2024. According to G1, a complaint from the São Paulo public prosecutor’s office states that he shot and killed a man in a bar in 1996 after an argument. According to the article, the candidate’s defense claims that the only evidence against him was the testimony of the victim’s wife, and that he was unaware of the existence of the arrest warrant. The murder trial has not yet ended.
In another case, a man convicted of raping a vulnerable person was approved by the electoral justice system to run for city council four days before his conviction.
“A lot of people will think the impact of this article is arrests. For me in particular, (the impact is) more than arrests, it’s more about courts communicating more information and public authorities sharing data in a really efficient way. “It’s about starting a discussion about how to use it, and how there are loopholes in the law.”
Mr. Silva also emphasized that in addition to the arrests, the article’s reaction among readers and in public debate had an important impact.
“It was cool to see readers commenting, ‘Wow, how could something like this happen?’ or ‘Wow, why hasn’t anyone talked about this before?'” or ” Wow, there are so many cases!” Now, we are talking about local elections, there are many candidates, but these cases are only a small part of the whole. Still, it is a reality that needs to be exposed, and we were able to do it. ”
This article was originally published by LatAm Journalism Review and is republished here with permission. Also available in Spanish and Portuguese.
Carolina de Assis is a Brazilian journalist and researcher living in Juiz de Fora, MG, Brazil. She holds a Master’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from the GEMMA Program – University of Bologna (Italy) / University of Utrecht (Netherlands) and is an editor at Gênero e Número, a Brazilian digital magazine focused on data journalism and gender issues. I have worked as a person. . She is particularly interested in journalistic initiatives aimed at promoting human rights and gender justice.
This article was first published on Global Investigative Journalism Network and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
