Brazil Supreme Court Orders Police Probe Into Deforestation After Pulitzer Center Report

The following is an English translation of a report originally published in Portuguese in Folha de S.Paulo.

Leia em português.

• NGOs had requested investigations based on Folha reports about a road in Acre that led to illegal deforestation and invasion of Indigenous land
• The decision was made in the main Supreme Court case on parliamentary amendments

SÃO PAULO—Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) Justice Flávio Dino granted a request from anti-corruption organizations and ordered the Federal Police to investigate the case of machines purchased with parliamentary amendments that paved the way for illegal deforestation and invasion of Indigenous land in the interior of Acre, as revealed by Folha in October.

According to Dino's decision, the facts reported in the article “constitute evidence of possible crimes.” He ordered the Federal Police to “take the appropriate measures within its jurisdiction, adding the case to existing investigations or opening new ones.”

The measure was adopted by the minister on Sunday, November 23, 2025, and also covered other situations of suspected misuse of amendments in other states reported by UOL and O Globo newspaper.

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The decision came in response to a petition signed by the Brazilian section of Transparency International and the organizations Transparência Brasil and Contas Abertas, filed about a month ago in the main STF case on parliamentary amendments, for which Dino is the rapporteur.

The requests regarding the environmental case in Acre were based on the publications in the series Power and Devastation, which began on October 11 by Folha with support from the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Investigations Network.

The first report in the series showed that, since 2015, congressmen and senators have allocated parliamentary amendments that brought 1,648 heavy machines to the states of the Legal Amazon, with a total of resources at least three times greater than that of environmental protection actions in the Amazon rainforest region.

Enforcement agents, authorities, environmentalists, and Indigenous leaders interviewed by the newspaper associate the widespread distribution of equipment with deforestation and the opening of illegal roads by city governments and other public agencies, combining pro-development rhetoric with violations of the law.

Subsequently, Folha reported on a specific case of a road between the municipalities of Porto Walter and Cruzeiro do Sul, investigating the environmental impacts behind the lack of planning and technical criteria in the use of the amendments.

This report showed that federal deputy Zezinho Barbary (PP-AC) uses his share of funds to regularize the construction of a road opened with illegal deforestation during the period when he himself was mayor of Porto Walter. The construction led the road to pass through his family's rural property and later invade a demarcated Indigenous land.

Barbary said in an interview with Folha that he “would do it all again” and described the requirements of environmental law as “bureaucracy.” He also stated that his conduct sought to respond to the demands of the local population and bring the city out of isolation. He denies having acted for his own benefit.

According to the petition filed by NGOs with the STF, this reported fact “clearly illustrates how funds from parliamentary amendments, distributed to projects and initiatives without any assessment of socio-environmental risks, end up enabling illegal conduct with serious impacts on the environment and indigenous peoples in the Amazon.”

Two requests made by anti-corruption entities in October have not yet been decided by the minister.

The first was that the STF call on the Federal Police and environmental agencies to “comment on the evidence and risks of using machinery purchased with funds from amendments to carry out illegal acts of deforestation and environmental degradation.”

Another request from NGOs still pending is that “the description of their immediate purposes be included among the socio-environmental criteria analyzed by government agencies in the evaluation of amendments for the acquisition of machinery, with the presentation of any licenses when they include the construction of roads and branches.”

In addition to Porto Walter, on Sunday Dino ordered an investigation into suspicions involving Tartarugalzinho (AP), the electoral base of the president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União Brasil-AP). A report by UOL pointed to evidence of embezzlement and irregularities in public tenders, including the awarding of contracts to companies linked politically to the mayor.

The minister also ordered an investigation into amendments intended for Arari (MA) by Representative Pedro Lucas Fernandes (União Brasil-MA). According to a report in the newspaper O Globo cited in the decision, R$1.25 million sent for the repair of local roads ended up being used to pay for city hall expenses, including garbage collection, the purchase of medicines, and payroll.

In Zabelê (PB), the publication showed that funds sent for the construction of a park were used to cover current expenses, such as payment of civil servants, small services, and utility bills. The amendment was authored by former Congresswoman Edna Henrique (Republicanos-PB).