[1][2] In 2018, she published a series on a supposedly illegal financial scheme in support of Jair Bolsonaro’s candidature for the Presidency of Brazil, involving massive use of social media.

[4] In 2018, the US news magazine Time selected "The Guardians and the War on Truth" as "Person of the Year", honoring investigative journalists worldwide.

She gained prominence in the context of the 2018 presidential election in Brazil when she signed a report on alleged electoral crimes in the campaign of candidate Jair Bolsonaro.

[14] Subsequently, in response to a questioning by the Supreme Electoral Court, statements from major social networks claimed that the Bolsonaro campaign did not buy content boost.

[15] However, these same social networks refused to provide information on the financing of content boost by entrepreneurs and companies linked to Bolsonaro, the subject of the article by Mello.

[17] In July, nine months after the opening of investigations into the illegal use of WhatsApp shots in the 2018 election, not a single suspect had been heard by the police.

[19] On 18 February 2020, during an interview with a group of sympathizers in front of the Dawn Palace, Bolsonaro insulted the journalist with a sexual innuendo: "She wanted to give the scoop at any price against me."

The statement to CPMI to which the president referred was from Hans River do Rio Nascimento, who worked for Yacows, a company specializing in digital marketing, during the 2018 election campaign.