The Brazilian Federal Police planned to close by the end of September the first inquiry into the Banco Master case, known as the "master inquiry", but the crisis at the Supreme Federal Court (STF) brought the case to a halt and forced a change of plans. According to a report by Valdo Cruz on G1, the conclusion is now expected only after the elections, whose first round is on October 4, and the delay also holds back later stages of the investigation.
The master inquiry covers the banking fraud that the police attribute to Daniel Vorcaro, the controller of Master, in an attempted sale of the bank to BRB, a public bank in Brasilia. G1 reports that investigators had considered closing this first phase between August and September because they regard those frauds as already proven. In this phase, the Federal Police is expected to request the "indiciamento", the formal police naming of suspects, of Vorcaro, former BRB president Paulo Henrique Costa and Central Bank employees accused of passing privileged information to the bank's owner. All of them remain under investigation: any criminal charge can only be sought later by federal prosecutors.
The case in brief
Daniel Vorcaro and his father, Henrique Vorcaro, have been jailed since March. Messages pulled from the banker's phone by the Federal Police have fed strands of the investigation and reports about his contacts with officials, as shown by Folha de S.Paulo. At the STF, where the case runs under Pet 16.662, as outlined by the legal news service Consultor Jurídico, the inquiry has turned into an open conflict: JOTA reported that the justices are weighing whether Alexandre de Moraes should be investigated over his relationship with Vorcaro. It is this paralysis at the court that, according to G1, froze the case.
Testimony on "A Turma" and "Os Meninos"
On Wednesday (30), father and son give statements to the Federal Police: Daniel Vorcaro at 2 pm, by video call, and Henrique Vorcaro at 4 pm, according to CNN Brasil. The hearings had been postponed. About two weeks earlier, their lawyers formally complained to the police that they had no access to the case files; Daniel's defense said the lawyers only received the material on "A Turma" on Friday (25) and were able to prepare because of that.
According to the police, "A Turma" (the crew) would have operated as Vorcaro's armed wing, assigned to intimidate opponents and attack journalists. The group was led by Luiz Phillipi Mourão, known as "o Sicário" (the hitman): arrested in a police operation, he was found dead in a cell in Belo Horizonte, and G1 reports that he took his own life. Data from Vorcaro's phone, according to the same report, records attempted assaults, including against journalists. "Os Meninos" (the boys) would have worked in cyber operations: hacking, taking down social media profiles and illegal monitoring. The police suspect members accessed systems of the Federal Police itself, of federal prosecutors and even of Interpol.
Henrique Vorcaro denies any involvement. In a letter sent to Justice André Mendonça of the STF, copied to the rest of the court, he disputes the police reading of messages from people connected to the scheme and says the amounts collected were payments for business ventures.
"If someone was being paid, or if this money was used for any crew or person, I have absolutely nothing to do with it. I do not know, and have never heard of, any crew," he wrote.
With the depositions, investigators hope to close one of the ongoing inquiries, according to CNN Brasil. The master inquiry into the attempted sale to BRB is now expected to conclude after the October 4 elections, when the Federal Police will file the requests to formally name the suspects.