Brazil's largest criminal faction, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), has been cited by Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice Flávio Dino in investigations into suspected public money routed to Dark Horse, a biopic of former president Jair Bolsonaro, according to the BBC's Brazilian service. The alleged link is businessman Alex Leandro Bispo dos Santos, a defendant in a femicide case whom police identify as controller of Favela Conectada, a company subcontracted by the Instituto Conhecer Brasil (ICB). The institute is run by Karina Ferreira da Gama, who also owns Go Up, the production company behind the film.

The references to the faction appear in two recent rulings by Dino, the case's reporting justice at the STF, Brazil's top court. On September 10, when he ordered the Federal Police operation Make Up and consolidated at the STF and the Federal Police the probes into diverted congressional budget earmarks, Dino cited "acts linked" to the PCC and said that, according to "police intelligence agencies", one of the men under investigation was a faction member. According to the BBC, that man is Alex Bispo. On September 13, lifting the seal on documents sent by São Paulo state courts, Dino wrote that evidence was strengthening the hypothesis of:

"An indissociable entanglement in a sophisticated scheme of allocation and diversion of public funds [...] This organization would even reach ties with the PCC faction (Primeiro Comando da Capital), according to an investigative line mentioned in the case files."

The suspicion that Alex belongs to the PCC did not originate in the film investigation. It first surfaced in the inquiry into the femicide of Maria Katiane Gomes da Silva, 25, who died after falling from the 10th floor of a building in Vila Andrade, in southern São Paulo, on November 29, 2025. State prosecutors charged the businessman and the court accepted the charges, making him a defendant. In audio recorded by a neighbor before her death and transcribed in the Civil Police report, Alex says "Tenho escorpião do PCC, não devo satisfação" ("I have a PCC scorpion, I answer to no one"). Investigators also noted his scorpion, carp and dragon tattoos, writing that the combination reinforced "the idea of a member who overcame great challenges" within the faction.

Prosecutor Lincoln Gakiya, of the Gaeco anti-organized crime task force in Presidente Prudente, told g1 that Alex has a long criminal record and served time in two prison units that hold PCC leadership, the Mirandópolis and Presidente Venceslau penitentiaries in western São Paulo state. A g1 review of National Council of Justice records found he is cited in more than 60 court cases, which does not mean he is a defendant in all of them. Contacted by the BBC, Alex's defense denied that he belongs to the PCC or to any criminal organization.

How the case unfolded

• June 2024: the ICB signs a contract with São Paulo city hall, under Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB), to install free public wi-fi in poor outskirts; g1 puts it at 108 million reais a year, while the Civil Police calculates 157 million reais overall.
• November 2025: Maria Katiane Gomes da Silva dies; Alex's company Favela Conectada had already installed more than 900 internet access points and received more than 3.8 million reais.
• December 2025: the outlets The Intercept Brasil and Metrópoles reveal the contracts between the ICB and Alex's company.
• January 2026: control of Favela Conectada passes to Tatiane Camargo de Oliveira Fernandes, who lives at Alex's address according to the state business registry; the company is renamed Urban Connect.
• June 2026: the Civil Police operation Wi-Fi serves warrants at addresses linked to Karina and seizes 27 devices.
• September 2026: Dino orders the Federal Police operation Make Up, consolidates the investigations and cites the PCC; on the 13th he lifts the secrecy on documents.

The contract promised 5,000 free wi-fi points in low-income areas by June 2025, but only 3,200 were installed, and at least three amendments pushed back the deadline, g1 reported. The first contract between the ICB and Favela Conectada was worth 12 million reais, signed soon after the city hired the nonprofit, which had no experience in the technology and outsourced the installation.

Seals on 27 devices and the São Paulo government's response

The documents released by Dino also detailed a dispute over the chain of custody of the 27 devices seized in the Wi-Fi operation on June 1: 9 laptops, 5 phones and 13 USB drives. In memoranda dated June 3, forensic expert Viviane Menezes refused the materials, writing that the packaging "has enough of a gap for a power and data transfer cable to enter, making it possible to manipulate the data inside the equipment". Five days later the devices were sent back to the police division that investigates crimes against the public administration for "readjustment of the packaging" and, once resealed, were accepted by the forensics institute. According to g1, the case files do not record whether the integrity of the data was ever examined.

On Monday (14), the Public Security Secretariat of the government of Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos), led by police chief Osvaldo Nico Gonçalves, denied any tampering. "There was no access to, extraction or manipulation of the data, nor any compromise of the chain of custody", the office said, arguing that the seals were intact, that some packaging had "small gaps" and that the initial refusal by forensics was "preventive". The secretariat added that "the photograph used by the press does not depict the objects seized in the operation".

Karina, targeted in Make Up along with federal lawmaker Mario Frias (PL-SP), the film's screenwriter and executive producer, told CNN Brasil, according to the BBC, that the film received no earmark money and described threats she attributes to people with whom she had professional and personal ties. The probes into the earmarks and the city contract remain consolidated at the Federal Police under Dino's relatoria at the STF. Alex has been held in preventive detention since February and is a defendant in the femicide case before São Paulo state courts.