Judicial Concentration and the Expanding Scope of ADPF 635
On October 6, 2026, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes met privately in his chambers with the director-general of the Federal Police and the heads of the organized-crime and intelligence divisions. The meeting was not listed on the official agenda. According to reporting by Malu Gaspar of O Globo, the discussion concerned planning further phases of operations in Rio de Janeiro conducted under ADPF 635, the long-running case originally focused on police lethality in the state’s favelas. The presence of the full senior leadership of the Federal Police—rather than the delegated case officer who would normally attend—struck other members of the Court as irregular. Justice Luiz Fux subsequently requested full access to the related “fake news” inquiry and associated files; Court President Edson Fachin denied the request. The episode produced visible institutional unease inside the Supreme Court itself.
ADPF 635 has, over successive months, generated a series of connected inquiries that have resulted in arrests and searches of state legislators and other public officials. Rodrigo Bacellar of União Brasil, the former president of the Rio state legislature, was detained in earlier phases of the related Operation Unha e Carne after police alleged he leaked information about an anti-Comando Vermelho operation. TH Joias of the MDB, a former state deputy, was arrested in Operação Zargun and described by investigators as a political intermediary for the same criminal organization.
On October 15, 2026, the eighth phase of Unha e Carne produced the arrest of Márcio Canella of União Brasil, a former mayor of Belford Roxo and recently elected state deputy. Federal Police reports identify him as a central political figure in a network that allegedly used gas stations to move roughly R$7.6 billion over six years, according to Coaf financial intelligence. Marcus Amim, a former head of the Rio Civil Police, was arrested in the same phase; investigators claim Canella assisted in placing him in relevant posts. Additional figures mentioned in the broader inquiries include Thiago Rangel of Avante and searches linked to Governor Cláudio Castro of the PL. A federal appellate judge, Macário Júdice Neto, was also detained in an earlier phase over alleged involvement in information leaks.
The original ADPF 635 petition was filed in 2019 by the PSB. Its formal object concerned the reduction of police lethality and the protection of fundamental rights during operations in favelas. Under Moraes’s reporting, the case has expanded into investigations of political protection networks, money-laundering structures, and alleged obstruction of justice by public officials who, in most instances, lack privileged forum before the Supreme Court. Critics inside and outside the judiciary have observed that the inquiry has come to resemble the earlier fake-news investigation in its open-ended character and in the concentration of investigative direction under a single justice. The October 6 meeting reinforced those concerns for some ministers, who viewed the direct coordination between one justice and the senior command of the Federal Police as a departure from ordinary practice.
The underlying allegations rest on Federal Police reports, financial intelligence, and judicial authorizations. Documented problems of organized crime infiltrating political and administrative structures in Rio de Janeiro are longstanding. At the same time, the procedural features that have drawn internal Court attention—the scale and secrecy of the coordination meeting, the progressive expansion of a single case beyond its original bounds, and the accumulation of related inquiries under one justice—are matters of institutional record. Those features raise ordinary questions about the separation of investigative and adjudicative functions, the limits of a constitutional action designed for structural remedies, and the risks that attend the concentration of authority over both the direction of police operations and the subsequent evaluation of the evidence those operations produce.
Those under investigation remain presumed innocent. The operations continue, as does the institutional debate they have generated inside the Supreme Court.
Sources: contemporaneous reporting by Malu Gaspar (O Globo), G1, and CNN Brasil on the October 6 meeting, the eighth phase of Operation Unha e Carne, and related STF proceedings.
