A year and two months before testifying in front of Congress' CPMI of Fake News, Hans River do Rio Nascimento had already given false statements to prosecutors in an investigation by the Electoral Prosecutor's Office in São Paulo.
Hans is a former employee of the company Yacows, which specializes in mass message blasts via WhatsApp, where he worked during the 2018 elections. On December 12 of the same year, he was questioned in a case investigating message blasts for political candidates.
Last week in testimony in the National Congress, he lied to prosecutors about his contact with Folha's reporter Patrícia Campos Mello.
Patrícia is a co-author of Folha's December 2018 article that reported how a network of companies, including Yacows, resorted to the fraudulent use of name and CPF of elderly people to register cell phone chips and thus trigger message blasts to benefit politicians.
The reporting was based on documents from the Labor Court, as well as information from Hans' documents delivered by him to the journalist.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon