The Instituto Iter, an organization linked to Justice André Mendonça of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF), received R$ 5.2 million from Cedro Participações, a mining holding controlled by businessman Lucas Kallas, a former business partner of banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of the now defunct Banco Master. The report came from columnist Cézar Feitoza at UOL, one of Brazil's largest news outlets, on Thursday (17).
The money was transferred under a convertible loan agreement signed in April 2024, which provided for R$ 5.9 million in funding. In such deals the creditor can turn the amount into an equity stake or demand its money back. Iter halted the operation and began returning the funds in January this year. One month later, Mendonça was assigned by lottery as the justice responsible for reporting the Banco Master investigations to the full court.
The negotiation was led by Iter's president, former education minister Victor Godoy Veiga, alongside Cedro representatives Carlos Adel de Freitas and Eduardo Soares de Couto. According to the institute, Mendonça and Kallas never discussed the terms of the contract. The organization also denied that Vorcaro took part in the talks. The justice left Iter in early September. The institute says he worked only as a lecturer, in academic activities, and received no dividends or share of results.
In a statement, the institute said it ended the loan because it was already "in a situation of financial sustainability". Asked about the use of the money, Iter said it had "never distributed to its shareholders any amount as profit, dividend or share of results" and that all funds were applied "exclusively to the structuring and activities of the entity". On the repayment, detailed in a note carried by Metro1, the institute said:
"An amendment to the loan agreement was signed establishing the early maturity of the debt, with immediate payment of the amounts owed by Iter. The interest rate set was the Selic rate. About 5.3% of the total debt has been paid so far."
The ties between Kallas and Vorcaro
According to the column, Kallas was a partner in companies that also received investments from groups linked to Vorcaro. Cedro held 8% of biotechnology firm Biomm at the end of 2023; in February 2024 the asset manager WNT, linked to the banker and to Nelson Tanure, bought shares in the company. Kallas also invested in Latache Capital and took a 33% stake in the manager in 2025. Messages found on Vorcaro's phone indicate the two traveled together to Caracas, Venezuela, in late November 2023 to discuss oil business.
Cedro denied any corporate or business link between Vorcaro and its holdings, and said investments by funds in listed companies do not amount to a commercial partnership. The holding said it left Biomm and Latache in April 2026 to focus on mining. Kallas is not under investigation in Operação Compliance Zero, the Federal Police inquiry into banking fraud involving Vorcaro and Banco Master, and Cedro does not appear in the case files. The Federal Police did, however, formally accuse Kallas in June over suspected irregularities in the Granja Corumi mine, in the Serra do Curral hills of Belo Horizonte. His defense says the matter was already investigated and dismissed by the courts and that he left the business in 2017.
Mendonça, appointed to the court by then president Jair Bolsonaro, has also confirmed a meeting with Vorcaro at Iter in March 2025; he said they discussed precatórios, court-ordered government debt payments. When the court judged the issue, it ruled unanimously against the position defended by the banker. A Supreme Court session that would have examined Mendonça's conduct in the Banco Master case had been scheduled for September 23. Court president Edson Fachin removed it from the agenda on Thursday (17) and set no new date, according to G1. Iter, meanwhile, continues to return the R$ 5.2 million to Cedro.