President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Friday (Sept. 18) that five justices of Brazil's Supreme Court, the STF, are linked "directly or indirectly" to the Banco Master case. He made the remarks in an interview with Rio de Janeiro radio station Super Rádio Tupi, in the middle of the presidential campaign. He did not name the justices.
Lula called for a reform of the judiciary and said the crisis must be settled first. According to news site Poder360, he said no one defends the contract between the law firm of the wife of Justice Alexandre de Moraes and Master, nor the dealings attributed to Justice Dias Toffoli, and that Justice André Mendonça "withheld" information about the case.
"But before we carry out this reform, we have to solve this problem. They are all there. There you have five justices who are linked directly or indirectly."
He added: "Whoever wants a seat on the Supreme Court cannot want to be rich." According to Poder360, Lula said "not everything has come out" about the case, and that justices and part of the press already have the material.
The five justices named in reports
Lula did not say whom he meant. What is public, according to Poder360, is that at least five members of the court, Moraes, Toffoli, Mendonça, Luiz Fux and Kassio Nunes Marques, appear in episodes, documents or messages connected to the case. The situations differ and, by themselves, do not mean the justices committed any wrongdoing. In September, the Federal Police identified 52 messages from Daniel Vorcaro to a contact attributed to Moraes, and the report cites two contracts with the firm of Viviane Barci de Moraes, the justice's wife, worth up to 158 million reais net. Moraes disputes the report and says the contract is legal.
In the same interview, Lula placed part of the responsibility for the case on the government of Jair Bolsonaro. According to UOL, he said the previous administration "turned a nobody into a banker", referring to Vorcaro, the former controller of Master, who is now in jail. Lula also confirmed he met Vorcaro on Dec. 4, 2024, at the businessman's request. The meeting lasted about 20 minutes, included Central Bank President Gabriel Galípolo and was not on the official presidential agenda, according to Revista Oeste. Lula said Vorcaro described the bank's troubles and claimed he was being persecuted, and that he replied the government would look into it.
Lula put the cost to public coffers at 60 billion reais. He said the scheme involved other banks and pension funds of state governments, in trades with bonds that, in his words, did not exist. He criticized what he called the "selective disclosure" of information from the investigation, said "a lot of people are scared" and called for the full lifting of secrecy in the case. The Federal Police arrested Vorcaro, and the Central Bank put Master into liquidation on suspicion of financial fraud.
What comes next at the STF
The full court began to decide on Sept. 15 whether to open an investigation into Moraes over his ties to Vorcaro. The vote stalled when Justice Flávio Dino asked for more time, a move that can delay the decision by up to 90 days. Dino also asked Justice Edson Fachin to examine André Mendonça's ties to the Iter institute and to Vorcaro; Fachin postponed that request. Mendonça has lifted the secrecy on 15 case files plus the main proceeding, and Fachin ordered the material released, except for information needed for ongoing police operations.