President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday, September 16, that Brazil's federal government will not give money to rescue BRB, the bank controlled by the government of the Federal District, the jurisdiction that includes Brasília. He spoke at a campaign rally in Ceilândia, on the outskirts of the capital, his first public campaign event there this year. In the same speech, Lula called the district governor, Celina Leão of the PP party, who is running for reelection, "cynical and lying".
According to the president, the bank bought worthless bonds and there is pressure on the federal government to step in, on the argument that without a transfer there would be no money to pay Bolsa Família, Brazil's flagship cash-transfer program. Both G1 and Poder360 reported the remarks.
"The BRB bought bonds that did not exist, 12 billion reais. And now they are saying: 'President, if you do not give money, we will not be able to pay Bolsa Família.' We will not leave the people without money, but we will not give money to the BRB."
Lula then blamed the crisis on the relationship between former governor Ibaneis Rocha of the MDB and Daniel Vorcaro, founder of Banco Master. "What broke the BRB was the connection between Ibaneis and Vorcaro of Banco Master," he said, adding about Ibaneis: "Where is he hiding, spending the money that was stolen?" His remarks came after the release of messages in which Vorcaro said Celina, then the deputy governor, took part in negotiations between BRB and Master, according to Poder360. Celina denies it and says she always opposed the deal.
Celina strikes back
Later, in a social media post, the governor answered the president. "I lament the statement of a president of the Republic who wants to break the BRB. I thought he was the president of Brazil," she wrote. In her view, Lula behaves like a "party president" who "thinks small and in a partisan way". She also said he offers help to Correios, the state postal service, yet refuses to allow a loan to the district bank: "I also thought the people of Brasília were Brazilians."
"The bank belongs to the population of the Federal District and cannot be used for a partisan dispute, above all from the stage of a rally that did not even gather three thousand people," Celina said.
The BRB crisis
BRB has faced the worst crisis in its history since November 2025, when the Federal Police operation Compliance Zero revealed suspected billion-real frauds involving Banco Master. The district bank injected 16.7 billion reais into Master in an attempted acquisition; the central bank blocked the purchase, and BRB later found that part of the portfolios it had bought was fraudulent and without backing. In April, a new phase of the investigation led to the arrest of former BRB president Paulo Henrique Costa. The district government, the controlling shareholder, uses BRB to run more than 30 social programs, housing loans and the payroll of public employees.
According to the bank's own data cited by G1, deals with Master between 2024 and 2025 totaled 30 billion reais, and at least 8.8 billion reais of the credits bought are nonexistent, fraudulent or hard to recover. Poder360 reports that the Federal Police identified about 12.2 billion reais in fake bonds. The district government says it can recover 2.2 billion reais through other measures and is asking for a 6.6 billion-real loan backed by the federal government to cover the rest. The law authorizing the agreement signed at the Supreme Court, the STF, was enacted on June 24.
The standoff remains open. The federal government has already said it cannot guarantee the loan, but the district government keeps pressing. The dispute now heads to the ballot box: both Lula and Celina are running for reelection in the first round, in October.