Banker Daniel Vorcaro, of Banco Master, met Justice Gilmar Mendes of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) on April 11, 2024. At the meeting, he asked the justice to vote in favor of a billion-real case involving sugar and ethanol mills that would have directly benefited Vorcaro. The meeting is described in a column by Mônica Bergamo in Folha de S.Paulo, Brazil's largest newspaper, published on Thursday (17).
The account draws on conversations that the Federal Police extracted from Vorcaro's phone. Estadão confirmed that the meeting with Gilmar took place and reported that Vorcaro hired former senator Francisco Feitosa de Albuquerque Lima, known as Chiquinho Feitosa (Republicans, Ceará), who was the justice's brother-in-law at the time and worked to arrange the meeting between the bank and the minister. Messages cited by the newspaper point to a contract worth 500,000 reais a month.
The role of the former brother-in-law
Chiquinho is the brother of lawyer Guiomar Feitosa, who was married to Gilmar until their divorce in November 2025. According to Estadão, conversations extracted by the Federal Police between April 15 and November 13, 2024 show that he received payments from Vorcaro for advisory work. He was hired by Super Empreendimentos, a company the Federal Police identifies as a vehicle for money laundering and hiding assets.
Contacted by the newspaper, Chiquinho first denied working for Vorcaro's bank. Confronted with the contract, he acknowledged providing services, though only for "a short period," and said the company was seen at the time as "reputable" and operating "in several sectors." In a September 11, 2024 message, he updated Vorcaro on negotiations over precatórios, the court-ordered debt certificates that the Brazilian government must pay, and on education matters, and discussed his own contract: "he sent the contract for us to sign and issue the invoice on the 15th, as agreed." Estadão also confirmed that a meeting between lawyer Bruno Bianco, a former head of the federal government's legal office, and Gilmar took place, and that Vorcaro introduced Bianco to Chiquinho. Bianco was hired by Banco Master to defend funds that bought sugar mill precatórios.
The requests failed
In both cases discussed between Vorcaro and the former senator, Gilmar's votes went against Banco Master's interests, Estadão reports. One involved precatórios of Usina Agroindustrial Tabu, in the state of Paraíba, bought by the bank's funds. The other dealt with rules for creating medical school slots; Master had been a partner in and funder of a university with medical courses through one of its funds, and Gilmar, as rapporteur, voted to keep the existing law, a ruling the newspaper says went indirectly against Vorcaro's interest.
The disclosures land as the Supreme Court remains in crisis over the data extracted from Vorcaro's phone. The court's president postponed this week the judgment on the case involving Justice André Mendonça; Gilmar attacked the case's rapporteur on social media and accused his colleague of acting for political and electoral ends. Mendonça said he never used the court's bench "as a campaign platform or a circus ring." Contacted on Thursday afternoon, Gilmar did not respond, and the newspaper says his space to comment remains open. The two rulings tied to Vorcaro's requests have already been decided, and both were defeats for the bank.