Brazil CPI Seeks Impeachment of Three Supreme Court Justices

A Senate investigation created to probe drug traffickers ended up targeting three of the most powerful judges in Brazil. The final report reads less like a crime brief and more like an indictment of the country’s judicial elite.

The CPI do Crime Organizado delivered its final report on Tuesday, and it landed far from where the investigation began. Senator Alessandro Vieira (MDB-SE), the committee’s rapporteur, filed a 221-page document calling for impeachment proceedings against three sitting Supreme Court justices—Dias Toffoli, Alexandre de Moraes, and Gilmar Mendes—and Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that this is the first time in Brazilian history that a congressional investigation has sought the indictment of members of the country’s highest court.

The report was filed in the early hours of Tuesday and is scheduled for a vote on the same day—the CPI’s final day of operation. Senate President Davi Alcolumbre refused to extend the committee’s mandate beyond April 14, citing the proximity of October’s elections. Vieira publicly called that decision “a disservice to Brazil.”

The CPI Crime Organizado Case Against Each Justice

The charges are rooted in the Banco Master scandal, which the report describes as “possibly the largest financial scandal in recent Brazilian history”—one that reveals the convergence of sophisticated financial crime and territorial organized violence. All four indictment requests cite crimes of responsibility under Law 1.079/1950, Brazil’s impeachment statute.

Dias Toffoli sold a stake in the Resort Tayayá through his company Maridt Participações to the Fundo Arleen, controlled by Fabiano Zettel—the brother-in-law of Banco Master owner Daniel Vorcaro and a figure identified by the Federal Police as a central financial operator in the criminal network investigated under Operação Compliance Zero. Despite this financial relationship and documented use of private jets linked to Vorcaro’s network, Toffoli served as the Supreme Court’s rapporteur on the Master case.

Alexandre de Moraes is accused of “regulatory capture” in favor of Vorcaro. The report centers on a contract between Banco Master and the law firm of Moraes’s wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes, which received R$80.2 million (~$15.4 million) in fees over two years. Moraes also allegedly used private aircraft connected to Vorcaro’s business network and contacted Central Bank President Gabriel Galípolo seeking information about the Master-BRB sale process.

Gilmar Mendes is accused of “corporate protection” for his two colleagues. The report states that Gilmar annulled the CPI’s own subpoenas for bank and tax records targeting Toffoli’s resort company and the Fundo Arleen. Justice André Mendonça also issued rulings that shielded witnesses—including excusing Toffoli’s siblings from testifying and protecting Distrito Federal Governor Ibaneis Rocha—though Mendonça was not included in the indictment request.

Paulo Gonet, the prosecutor-general, is accused of “patent negligence” for failing to act on what the report calls “public and robust evidence of crimes of responsibility” by the justices. The CPI argues Gonet maintained institutional silence when his constitutional duty required him to investigate.

A CPI That Changed Direction

The committee was created five months ago to investigate narcotrafficking and organized crime. Senators pivoted to the Banco Master case after resistance to creating a dedicated Master CPI blocked that avenue. The shift produced a final report in which the only individuals targeted for indictment are three Supreme Court justices and the head of the prosecution service—none of whom were part of the original investigation’s scope.

The CPI ends with significant gaps. Former Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto refused to testify three times, shielded by an STF ruling that converted his mandatory subpoena into a voluntary invitation, while former Rio de Janeiro Governor Cláudio Castro cited acute back pain and did not appear on the final day. More than 90 witnesses the committee intended to hear were never called.

Beyond the Bench: 28.5 Million Under Gang Rule

Overshadowed by the judicial indictments, the report also delivers a sweeping diagnosis of organized crime in Brazil. It identifies approximately 90 criminal organizations operating across 24 states and the Federal District, estimates that 28.5 million Brazilians live in areas under the influence of criminal groups, and finds that roughly 26% of national territory operates under some form of criminal governance. In 2024, Brazil recorded 44,127 intentional violent deaths—a rate of 20.8 per 100,000 inhabitants.

The report’s policy recommendations include a federal security intervention in Rio de Janeiro, the creation of a standalone Ministry of Public Security (separated from the Justice ministry), regulation of lobbying, a tax on online gambling to fund security operations, stricter rules on precatory asset transfers to prevent money laundering, and the strengthening of COAF, Brazil’s financial intelligence unit.

What Happens Next

Even if the report is approved by the committee’s members on Tuesday, it carries no binding legal force. The impeachment referrals would need to be forwarded by Senate President Alcolumbre—the same official who refused to extend the CPI’s mandate and has signaled he will not install a dedicated Banco Master CPI either. The indictment requests go to the Procuradoria-Geral da República, which is led by Gonet himself—one of the four people the report targets.

The structural contradiction is plain: a congressional investigation concluded that the judiciary and the prosecution service shielded themselves from accountability, and the mechanism for acting on those conclusions runs through the very institutions accused of obstruction. Whether the report becomes a legal catalyst or an election-year document that gathers dust will depend on whether the political will to challenge the court survives the October campaign. A Datafolha poll released this week found that 75% of Brazilians believe Supreme Court justices hold too much power—a number that gives the report’s recommendations an audience, even if the institutions meant to act on them have shown little appetite to do so.

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