The phone seized from former banker Daniel Vorcaro is in Federal Police custody. The rapporteur for the Banco Master case at Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), Justice André Mendonça, said on Friday (11), in a reply to Justice Cristiano Zanin, that his chambers hold only a sealed, encrypted backup copy of its contents.
According to the rapporteur, a February 2026 ruling expressly ordered the seized items to remain in Federal Police storage to preserve the chain of custody. The device, an iPhone 17 Pro, was seized by the force. As G1 reports, Mendonça said the force voluntarily sent his chambers an encrypted hard drive in March 2026, inside a closed envelope, and that it has remained sealed and untouched since.
Zanin reiterates the request
On the same day, Zanin sent a new formal request to the court's president, Justice Luiz Edson Fachin, insisting on full access to the material. He argued that the delivery in a sealed envelope by the police authority does not remove the duty to share the contents with the other justices.
"The requested media is in Your Excellency's chambers and must be shared with the other judges, so that everyone has the same opportunity to analyze the elements related to the case in question," Zanin wrote.
Zanin argued that "the preservation of the chain of custody must be carried out in relation to the original material, and not in relation to the copy." He noted that court practice gives all justices access to the rapporteur's case file before rulings, and that Vorcaro's lawyers have already received a copy of the mirrored data from the Federal Police. Restricting the same content from the justices, he wrote, would amount to "evident incongruence" and cause "severe difficulties" in the judgment. As an alternative, Zanin asked the STF presidency to order the Federal Police to send a copy of the data directly to each justice's chambers.
In a separate filing, Justice Alexandre de Moraes backed Zanin's request. "It is not up to the rapporteur justice to choose which documents are accessible to the full bench to carry out its judgment," Moraes said.
Tuesday's session
The standoff precedes Tuesday's session (15), when the court will review the Federal Police report that identified 52 messages from Vorcaro to Moraes. The justices will decide whether to open an investigation against Moraes. Zanin argued that every member of the bench must have the same opportunity to examine the material before the vote, regardless of the analysis carried out by the rapporteur.