Targeting agro, Brazilian courts try to zero in on January 8 financiers

Brazilian Federal Police agents on Thursday searched 22 addresses in three states linked to people suspected as financiers of the January 8 riots, when far-right demonstrators stormed government buildings in Brasília in a hopeless attempt to overturn the 2022 elections (even though center-left President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had already taken office by then).

The operation is the 11th arm of a broader investigation into the organizers, financiers, and rabble-rousers of the riots. Authorized by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees the investigation, the operation also froze more than BRL 40 million (USD 8 million) in assets belonging to suspected financiers.

Operation Lesa Pátria (meaning “crimes against the state”) has become permanent, with new phases being launched almost every week. The suspects targeted on Thursday face a series of charges, including violent sedition, conspiracy, incitement to criminal activity, and crimes against public property.

In parallel, the Supreme Court has churned out wholesale indictments. The Federal Prosecution Office has brought charges against 1,390 people in connection with the January 8 riots. So far, the court has accepted charges against 550 of them — and another 250 could be added to the list by next week. 

Among the suspected financiers targeted by Thursday’s police operation are rural producers and agricultural business owners. One is entrepreneur Geraldo Cesar Killer, who donated BRL 10,000 to the election campaigns of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro and Senator Marcos Pontes. He was not found at his home in the interior of São Paulo state, but investigators encountered significant quantities of money in cash.

Closing the public money faucet to rural producers

As The Brazilian Report has reported over the years, the country’s agricultural sector had never enjoyed such close ties with the federal government as it did during the former Jair Bolsonaro administration. 

This prestige was on display from the very first moments of the Bolsonaro administration. In February...