Justice Cristiano Zanin of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) asked the court's president, Justice Edson Fachin, on Friday (11) to release in full the media contents of the cellphone of businessman Daniel Vorcaro, seized by the Federal Police in November 2025. The request comes two days before the full bench meets on Tuesday (15) to decide the fate of a Federal Police report that names Justice Alexandre de Moraes as an interlocutor of Vorcaro in the Master bank case.
On Thursday night (10), Fachin asked the case's rapporteur, Justice André Mendonça, to lift the secrecy covering part of the investigation records. Mendonça complied, but what became public were the Federal Police reports on the phone's contents, rather than the full set of media files such as photos, videos and notes, according to Folha de S.Paulo. In his memo, Zanin argues that the material on the phone of the former banker is directly related to the case and that Fachin's order to lift the secrecy already covers it. The release, he wrote, will allow a "necessary and complete" review of next week's judgment. G1 reports that Zanin maintains the media files are covered both by the order to share the case files among the justices and by the secrecy lift granted by Mendonça.
Timeline of the case
The Master case grew out of Federal Police operations such as "Sem Desconto" and "Compliance Zero" and is handled at the STF under Mendonça. Vorcaro, a former banker under investigation, had his phone seized in November 2025. On September 1, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGR), the federal prosecutors' authority, asked for the annulment of the Federal Police report that gathers messages between Moraes and Vorcaro. On Thursday (10) Fachin asked for the records to be opened; the files went public on Friday (11), the same day Moraes, Zanin and the PGR sent memos to Fachin asking for wider access to the documents.
The dispute inside the court
Moraes said Mendonça made a "selective choice" of what became public and asked for all secrecy to be lifted immediately. According to his memo, only 15 proceedings were released in partial form, excluding 180 documents and digital files; Folha counts 14 proceedings unsealed. Moraes called Mendonça "directly interested in the judgment" and also asked that two petitions be judged together: one covering the messages he exchanged with Vorcaro and another gathering Federal Police reports on the rapporteur's conduct in the "Sem Desconto" and "Compliance Zero" operations.
"The piecemeal judgment of petitions 16,704 and 16,662 (...) added to the selective lifting of secrecy on only part of the proceedings, and the subjective direction by one of the interested parties on which documents should be delivered to the judging ministers, with the suppression of 180 documents, gravely obstructs the analysis of evidence," Moraes wrote.
The PGR weighed in on Friday as well. Deputy Prosecutor General Hindenburgo Chateaubriand Filho asked for the secrecy to be lifted from all case documents to avoid "inducing the mistaken idea of transparency." The office said the list sent by Mendonça omitted most of the proceedings linked to the broader Compliance Zero investigation.
The next step is Tuesday's session (15), when the bench is expected to review petitions tied to the investigation, including the one on the Federal Police report about Moraes and Vorcaro. The judgment may lead to an investigation against Moraes or to the annulment of the report, as the PGR requested on September 1. Fachin is still defining the format of the session, according to G1. No one named in the case has been convicted, and the proceedings remain open.