Brazil's Federal Police suspects that Daniel Vorcaro, founder of Banco Master, acted to influence the vote of Dias Toffoli, a justice of the STF, Brazil's Supreme Court, in a ruling on precatórios, the court-ordered debt payments the government owes to creditors who win lawsuits against it. The finding appears in a police report obtained by the magazine piauí and detailed on Friday (Sept. 11) by Poder360 and Revista Oeste.
The case concerned the Alcídia distillery, owned by the Atvos group, which sought compensation from the federal government for losses dating to the 1980s. The ruling could have affected a portfolio of more than R$ 10 billion in precatórios carried on the bank's balance sheet. According to the report, Toffoli had a record of ruling in favor of the mills in similar disputes. Days before the Alcídia judgment, he sided with the government in a comparable case brought by Raízen.
The messages
In messages extracted from Vorcaro's phone, the bank's then legal director, André Kruschewsky, asked: "Shall we get moving?". Vorcaro replied that he was following the case "more than you can imagine" and wrote: "Toffoli flipped his vote" and "I'm handling it here".
Kruschewsky offered to help pull the case from the docket. For the Federal Police, the exchange indicates that the director "appears to have access to the Supreme Court" to try to interfere with the case. The judgment was postponed after Justice Kassio Nunes Marques asked for more time to review the record. When it resumed, Toffoli voted in favor of Alcídia, back to the position he had historically taken. The mill's thesis won by 3 votes to 2. A bank operator told Vorcaro the result, and the banker replied with an approval emoji.
Denial and caveats
The Federal Police said the messages exchanged before the ruling carry "special relevance", but cautioned that the evidence gathered does not yet allow definitive conclusions and that the episode "demands deeper analysis". Toffoli's office denied any "change of vote" and said the justice kept his position in the Raízen case. The police report compares the two judgments and notes that, in the Alcídia ruling, Toffoli again voted against the government.
The same document says Vorcaro channeled at least R$ 35 million into the Arleen fund, which held a stake in the Tayayá resort, a business tied to Toffoli's family. Police raised the suspicion that the justice could be the fund's ultimate beneficiary. Toffoli denies having received any money from the banker. The inquiry remains open within the broader Master case, and the Federal Police says the matter will be examined further.