Messages pulled from Daniel Vorcaro's phone by Brazil's Federal Police include a photo of Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet, the head of the country's federal prosecution service, holding a cigar at a table set with glasses of whisky, seated beside the owner of Banco Master at a private club in London. The image was obtained by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, and the prosecutor's office confirmed it is authentic while declining to comment further. According to Valor Econômico, lawyer Ciro Soares, a former defense counsel for Master, sent the picture to the ex-banker on June 19, 2025 with the message "PG me mandou", Portuguese for "PG sent me", the initials standing for Paulo Gonet.

People with knowledge of the investigations told Folha the photo was taken on April 25, 2024, during a whisky tasting at the private George Club in the Mayfair district, an event reportedly paid for by Vorcaro. Valor reports the banker spent 3.2 million reais (roughly 600,000 US dollars at the time) on the private Macallan tasting, which was also attended by Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Federal Police director-general Andrei Rodrigues. The STF is Brazil's highest court.

What each side says

In a filing sent on Thursday (17) to the CSMPF, the oversight council of the federal prosecution service, Gonet denied any friendship with Vorcaro and acknowledged a single in-person meeting with the ex-banker, in April 2024, at what he described as a public legal event in London attended by several other authorities. The reports that revealed the photo describe the occasion as a private tasting paid for by the banker.

"I have no friendship whatsoever with Mr. Daniel Vorcaro, much less any personal interest in the cases in which he appears as a party or as a suspect."

On a March 15, 2025 phone call cited in Federal Police reports, the prosecutor-general said it was a "brief greeting" at Soares's request, with no relevant subject and before he had any knowledge of criminal activity. He added that Soares had been introduced to him "as a successful lawyer and businessman". Soares's office said the image "is from a 2024 event, when there was no investigation into businessman Daniel Vorcaro" and that "there is nothing irregular in the photo". The prosecutor's office told Folha that STF Justice André Mendonça had himself recognized that "there is nothing wrong" in the mentions of the prosecutor-general.

How the case reached this point

The messages between Soares and Vorcaro are part of material seized by the Federal Police in its investigation of Banco Master, in which Vorcaro, now held in preventive detention, is a suspect. According to the PF, Gonet's contact with the banker began through Soares in April 2024, when the lawyer wrote "friendship is everything, brother" and then "Gonet is solid", in conversations that initially dealt with Jarbas Soares Júnior, a former attorney general of justice in Minas Gerais state. In 2025 the two were organizing the second edition of a legal forum in London sponsored by Master, later cancelled. In the exchanges, Soares relayed to Vorcaro a message attributed to Gonet about the gathering: "Great! I hope there's cigars and Macallan". Vorcaro replied by thanking him for the warmth and added, "let's set a time to get together".

• April 25, 2024: Macallan tasting at the George Club in Mayfair, paid for by Vorcaro; the photo shows Gonet beside the banker.
• March 15, 2025: brief call between Gonet and Vorcaro, acknowledged by the prosecutor in his CSMPF filing.
• June 19, 2025: Soares sends the photo to Vorcaro with the message "PG me mandou".
• September 15, 2026: the STF postpones debate on the PF report citing Gonet and Moraes, after Justice Flávio Dino asks to review the case before voting.
• September 17, 2026: Gonet denies friendship with Vorcaro in a filing to the CSMPF; the next day, Folha and Valor publish the photo and details of the conversations.

The messages became public when STF Justice André Mendonça sent the court a Federal Police report that also mentions Moraes, asking that the case go to the full bench, which is to decide whether to authorize an investigation of the justice. Named in the document, Gonet argues the report is null because it was produced at Mendonça's request without a prior request from the prosecution service or the police, and notes that Brazilian law requires authorization by the full court before one of its members can be investigated.

The next step is the return of the matter to the STF's full bench, with no date set. Separately, Gonet's filing about his relationship with Vorcaro remains under review at the CSMPF.