Insider

Our reporting triggers federal investigation

brazilian Report delgatti moraes zambelli
Carla Zambelli hired infamous hacker Walter Delgatti. Photo: Bruno Spada/CD

An exposé published by The Brazilian Report in February sparked an investigation into far-right Congresswoman Carla Zambelli. 

The Brazilian Report revealed that notorious hacker Walter Delgatti — who tried to break into the phone of Brazilian Chief Electoral Justice Alexandre de Moraes last year — was working for Ms. Zambelli. Federal police raided Ms. Zambelli’s offices and home on Wednesday and carried out an arrest warrant for Mr. Delgatti.

Mr. Delgatti is accused of breaking into the systems of the National Justice Council (CNJ), a watchdog of the country’s court system, and inserting false release orders in favor of 11 people in police custody and a false arrest order against Justice Moraes.

The warrants, authorized by Justice Moraes, cite excerpts from The Brazilian Report story that detailed the plan to hack the justice — part of a plan to dig up dirt on him and discredit the 2022 presidential race. 

They sought to discredit the electoral process, a claim linked to former President Jair Bolsonaro. They met at a gas station in September 2022, before the elections that led to the victory of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But the hacker was not successful in any of the missions and would have infiltrated the CNJ server as a kind of compensation. 

Ms. Zambelli paid BRL 13,500 (USD 2,800) for the hacker’s services, in installments between October and January, through consultants (one from her own office and another from her brother, who is a São Paulo lawmaker).

Justice Moraes requested access to her confidential banking records. Information must be delivered within 30 days.

The quoted passage in the investigation refers to the moment when the hacker tries to co-opt an employee of a telephone company to infiltrate Mr. Moraes’s cell phone, as shown by The Brazilian Report in audio clips in Portuguese. 

“Later, talking to the journalist AMANDA AUDI, WALTER confirms that he is the interlocutor of the alleged employee of the TIM telephone company and his intention to attack Minister ALEXANDRE DE MORAES.”

Watch the video of our conversations with Walter Delgatti below: