Brazil's Central Bank approved the board of Banco Master on August 4, 2021, including as a director Angelo Antonio Ribeiro da Silva, an executive who was under investigation by the CVM, the country's securities regulator, for suspected price manipulation and whose case had already been formally reported to the monetary authority. The finding comes from ICL Notícias, based on a CVM report cited in a decision by Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino released on Thursday (24). The approval came under Roberto Campos Neto, then Central Bank president, and also covered Daniel Vorcaro and Luiz Antonio Bull.
Angelo was responsible for issuing trading orders for shares of CARE11, a real estate fund tied to the funeral industry, on behalf of what was then Banco Máxima. CVM staff identified 455 purchase operations between September 2018 and December 2019 and concluded that the bank acted in a coordinated and systematic way, especially in the last trading sessions of each month; in key periods it accounted for between 48.9% and 87% of all purchases. In a recording reproduced in the case file, the executive says the trades were meant to keep the price "from falling" and asks a broker for protection on the paper.
The probe became administrative sanctioning case 19957.006441/2021-87, in which the regulator's technical area proposed holding the bank and the executive liable. The merits were never judged: in November 2022 the CVM accepted a settlement under which Máxima agreed to pay R$ 2.208 million and Angelo R$ 736,000, a combined R$ 2.944 million, with no recognition of wrongdoing. The bank's defense said it believed funeral sector assets would appreciate, that the purchases were part of its investment strategy and that the fund's low liquidity explained the price impact. Angelo has not been convicted and remains an investigated party in the broader Master case.
Timeline
In February 2019 the Central Bank rejected the transfer of control of Máxima to Vorcaro, citing insufficient information on the origin of the funds. Eight months later, under Campos Neto, the board reversed course and authorized the deal. In 2020 the bank's own supervision flagged liquidity problems and warned Vorcaro that failing to comply with its demands could lead to extrajudicial liquidation. In 2021 Máxima was renamed Master, Angelo was approved as a director and the Central Bank authorized the acquisition of Banco Vipal. Between 2022 and 2024 supervisors sent 31 formal letters to the conglomerate demanding adjustments. In November 2025, under Gabriel Galípolo, Master was liquidated after the Central Bank diagnosed a severe liquidity crisis.
Supreme Court inquiry
On Thursday, Dino ordered the Federal Police to investigate the CVM's handling of the Master case for alleged omission. According to G1, one focus is the 2022 archiving of a complaint forwarded by the FGC, Brazil's deposit guarantee fund, which said more than R$ 3 billion of roughly R$ 5 billion raised with fund coverage sat in illiquid assets. The CVM task force report recorded that no investigative action followed the complaint. ICL Notícias counted four CVM communications to the Central Bank about the Master universe between 2020 and 2022, all under Campos Neto, plus two more in 2025 and January 2026. Contacted for comment, the Central Bank did not say what it did with them.
Campos Neto has said decisions such as intervention or liquidation were not his alone and that no such proposal reached the board during his tenure. According to Estadão reporting cited by ICL Notícias, he avoided harsher measures on at least two occasions in 2024, when Master pledged to raise R$ 15 billion in long-term funding and obtained about R$ 2 billion. The next steps have dates: the Federal Police must deliver a first report within 60 days of September 24, the CVM was given 72 hours to hand over the full archived case file, and Galípolo confirmed to Estadão and O Globo that he will testify to the Federal Police as a witness in October.