An Army reserve colonel who had at least six private meetings with Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in the palaces of Planalto and Alvorada in 2019 is the informant mentioned by the former president in the meeting that dealt with the "rachadinhas" case that hit Flávio Bolsonaro, say people who closely followed these episodes.

Last Monday (15), Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the STF (Supreme Federal Court) lifted the secrecy of the August 2020 audio in which Bolsonaro discussed the use of the federal machinery to try to nullify the investigation against his eldest son.

In the meeting, Bolsonaro volunteered to speak with the heads of Receita Federal (tax agency) and Serpro —the state-owned company that holds tax data— in the context of discussing the search for evidence that could be used to prove that Flávio had his data accessed illegally at the start of the investigation.

At the beginning of that meeting on August 25, 2020, the then president of the Republic said that the person who passed the information to him was "an Army colonel" and, in an apparent irony, completed by saying that he should "have traded for the Russian secret service."

Then, Bolsonaro mentioned having forgotten the name, at which point Augusto Heleno, then head of the Institutional Security Office, said he knew who the person was, but also showed some hesitation in remembering. Then, he said "Magela," which was repeated by Bolsonaro.

People who closely followed the case say the reference is actually to "Marsiglia," the surname of retired Army colonel Carlos Alberto Pereira Leonel Marsiglia.

Bolsonaro's public agenda in the Presidency shows that on six occasions, five of them alone, he received Colonel Marsiglia in the first half of 2019, more than a year before the 2020 meeting, in the palaces of Planalto and Alvorada.

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