At the headquarters of the Banco de Brasília (BRB), the state-controlled bank of Brazil's Federal District, a warning landed on the board's table back in August 2024, months before the crisis broke into the open: something was deeply wrong with the credit portfolios the bank had been buying from Banco Master. The episode appears in a partial report by the Federal Police investigation into dealings between the two institutions, revealed on Wednesday (28) by G1. According to the document, a manager told executives at the time that roughly 90% of the portfolio received from Master showed flaws or failed to meet the bank's own criteria.
The internal warning pointed to a set of problems ranging from data inconsistencies to governance failures and compliance deficiencies, including possible irregularities in how the credits were originated. Even so, according to the investigation, operations between the two banks continued. The Federal Police report also records that the BRB presidency pushed for the approval of new purchases while internal analyses kept rejecting most of the assets offered by Master for failing the bank's filters.
In some cases, only a small fraction of the credits passed the checks. Instead of halting the acquisitions, investigators say, the bank allegedly changed its evaluation criteria to expand the volume it could accept. The report sums up the pattern this way:
"Even in the face of the repeated rejection of the assets presented, the guidance was not to stop the acquisitions, but to demand that Master find new credits that would allow the operations to continue."
Purchases sliced to fit the limit
The Federal Police highlight the responsibility of the executive board, known as DICOL, the body meant to block deals based on incomplete information or in breach of internal rules. The investigation shows that 13 of the 14 executive notes that started the acquisition processes were approved before the technical opinions were even concluded. There was also an arithmetic maneuver: DICOL may only approve portfolio purchases of up to R$ 750 million (about US$ 140 million), and the board approved 25 transactions totaling R$ 17.5 billion, of which 21 were set at exactly R$ 750 million. Altogether, the amount equals 23.3 times the board's negotiation limit.
BRB tried to buy Banco Master outright and injected R$ 16.7 billion into Daniel Vorcaro's bank. The acquisition was blocked by the Central Bank, and BRB later discovered that part of the portfolios it had purchased was fraudulent and lacked backing. The case is investigated under Operation Compliance Zero, running before the Supreme Court as Inquiry 5026. On Wednesday, as Poder360 also reported, the Federal Police formally named 15 suspects in the partial report, including Vorcaro, Master's former controller, and Paulo Henrique Costa, BRB's former president. Both are in prison. The list also includes former Master directors, two partners of the Tirreno consultancy, described by police as a shell company, and seven former BRB executives. In Brazil, this step, known as indiciamento, means police consider the suspects formally linked to a crime; it precedes any charges by prosecutors.
What the defenses say
In a statement, Daniel Vorcaro's defense called the move "hasty and rushed" and said the Federal Police itself admits the investigation is unfinished, with forensic work ongoing, seized material still unexamined and key witnesses not yet heard. The lawyers argue there is no proven loss to BRB, that the problematic portfolios were replaced with other assets, and that the figures cited in the report come from a compensation suit filed by the bank itself. G1 and TV Globo are seeking comment from the defenses of the others named.
That August 2024 warning, received on the board's table in Brasília, is now one of the central pieces of the investigation: the indication, according to the Federal Police, that the alarm bells rang inside the bank itself long before the losses became public, and that the purchases went on anyway.