Federal Police documents say that Daniel Vorcaro, the owner of Banco Master, and businessmen under investigation for ties to the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), Brazil's largest criminal faction, in the fuel sector used the same financial structure to move money and hide assets. According to G1, which obtained the papers filed with the 7th Federal Criminal Court of São Paulo and unsealed by the Supreme Federal Court this week, the meeting point between the two groups was Trustee Distribuidora de Títulos e Valores Mobiliários, a securities distributor, and its director, Artur Martins de Figueiredo.
The connection surfaced during Operation Quasar, which was examining the use of investment funds to hide assets attributed to Roberto Augusto Leme da Silva, known as Beto Louco, and Mohamad Hussein Mourad, known as Primo, both described by the Federal Police as leaders of a criminal scheme in the fuel business. When officers analyzed Artur's phone, seized during the searches, they found chats about Banco Master operations. In the messages, Ascendino Madureira Garcia, known as Dino, relayed to Artur orders attributed to Vorcaro and pressed for the technical execution of the deals through funds managed by Trustee. In one exchange, after receiving a spreadsheet with the web of funds, companies and investors involved, Ascendino replied with a sticker of Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Wolf of Wall Street".
The same machinery
In the police reading, Vorcaro would be the final beneficiary of the operations, Ascendino the go-between, and Artur the one responsible for the technical execution and the paperwork in Trustee's funds. Investigators say the distributor appears on both sides of the scheme: it managed funds used in operations attributed to Mohamad's core group and, at the same time, carried out demands related to Banco Master. The structure used investment funds, companies and special purpose entities to build layers between the money and its final beneficiaries, with accounting adjustments and asset revaluations meant to give a legitimate appearance to suspect transactions, the report says. On the fuel side, the goal would be to shield assets from tax inspections and enforcement. On September 3, Brazil's Central Bank placed Trustee and Banvox, distributors linked to a former Master partner, into extrajudicial liquidation, a step reported by UOL and InfoMoney. The Federal Revenue Service has already said, in a survey cited by G1, that the PCC controls at least 40 investment funds holding more than R$ 30 billion.
How the case got here
Until the messages were found, the two inquiries had separate targets: one investigated money laundering in the fuel sector, focusing on funds managed by Trustee, Reag and the former Ruby Capital; the other examined Banco Master's financial operations. The phone review led the Federal Police to request the sharing of evidence between the two cases. Beto Louco and Mohamad have already been indicted for money laundering and for falsidade ideológica, the crime of entering false information into official records, in a scheme worth R$ 1 billion, and both are considered fugitives. According to the police, Beto Louco would be a PCC member and the actual owner of the business group, which includes Aster Petróleo and Copape, while Mohamad would run the operational core.
The defense teams deny the charges. In a note on Operation Carbono Oculto, Mohamad's lawyers said the investigations present "unproven facts" inside a "narrative disconnected from reality". Beto Louco's defense said it will show the charges lack merit. G1 said it contacted the lawyers for Vorcaro, Ascendino, Artur and Trustee and had received no reply by publication time. Everyone named in the report remains an investigated party, with no conviction.
The fuel-sector case now sits in the 7th Federal Criminal Court of São Paulo, where the documents were filed. The next steps on record are the handling of the Federal Police request to share evidence between the two inquiries and the responses of the defenses of Vorcaro, Ascendino, Artur and Trustee, which have not yet spoken publicly about this report.