Brazils Supreme Court orders the arrest of former head of Banco Master
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A Brazil A Supreme Court Judge has ordered the arrest of Daniel Vorcaro, the former head of a bank with assets worth $16 billion, in a new phase of a wide-ranging investigation into a fraud involving billions of reais.
In the lengthy 48-page decision authorizing Vorcaro’s pretrial detention, signed on Tuesday and accessed by The Associated Press on Wednesday, Judge André Mendonça said the investigation had already turned up signs of Banco Master’s crimes against the financial and justice systems, as well as its involvement in organized crime and money laundering.
Separately, Brazil federal police In a statement on Wednesday, they said they launched raids “in order to investigate possible crimes of threats, corruption, money laundering and attacks on computer systems committed by a criminal organization.”
Police said four arrest warrants and 15 search and seizure warrants were issued. Supreme Court in the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais.
Vorcaro’s name was not mentioned in the Federal Police statement, but it was stated that the raids were the third part of Operation Compliance Zero, which was given to the investigations into Banco Master.
The Federal Police statement also stated that authorities ordered the freezing of assets worth 22 billion reais ($4.2 billion). He did not specify the owner of these assets.
There was Vorcaro He was detained in November under investigation into alleged fraud, but was later released.
But further investigations by the Brazilian Federal Police show that Vorcaro was part of a group called “The Crew” that also sought to obtain classified information, monitored individuals considered opponents of the group, and carried out “acts of intimidation to protect the interests of the core of the criminal organization,” Mendonça wrote in his ruling.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Vorcaro’s legal representation team.
In his ruling, Mendonça said Vorcaro planned to stage a robbery or severely harm a journalist whose name had been changed by simulating a similar scenario. Local newspaper O Globo said the person in question was columnist Lauro Jardim.
According to the verdict, Vorcaro said, “I want to have him beaten. Break all his teeth. In a robbery.”
Reports of the plot sparked outrage, and O Globo said in a statement that it “strongly rejects the criminal attempts planned against columnist Lauro Jardim, one of the country’s most respected journalists.” The publication called for those involved to be punished to the fullest extent of the law and promised not to be intimidated by threats.
The Brazilian Press Association called the plans “a barbarity incompatible with the Democratic Rule of Law” and “a brutal attack on the entire category of journalists and society’s right to information.”
In November, the Central Bank of Brazil closed Banco Master, whose assets reached $16 billion. At the time, Andrei Rodrigues, director general of Brazil’s federal police, told lawmakers that police had uncovered fraud worth 12 billion Brazilian reais ($2 billion) in the country’s banking system.
You can follow AP’s Latin America and Caribbean news at: https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
