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The owner of Brazil’s Banco Master has been arrested again following new allegations of illegal surveillance, intimidation of critics and corruption of central bank officials, as the lender’s collapse continues to fuel political scandal.
Daniel Vorcaro was detained by federal police in São Paulo on Wednesday on the order of the country’s Supreme Court, which also issued arrest warrants for three other individuals. Police said assets worth R$22bn (US$4.2bn) had been frozen.
Justice André Mendonça’s decision justified the detentions by citing the risk of interference in a criminal investigation, as well as evidence indicating Vorcaro and an associate had considered violence against an employee and a journalist.
The ruling also said two central bank staffers, who have been suspended, received payments in exchange for sharing confidential supervisory information with Vorcaro and advising him on regulatory matters.
Vorcaro’s defence team denied the allegations and said he had never sought to obstruct the case and was co-operating with authorities.
The arrests mark a significant escalation in a probe of suspected fraud and money laundering at Banco Master, which collapsed last year with estimated losses of more than R$40bn, in Brazil’s biggest banking failure in a generation.
The midsized lender had expanded rapidly by offering high-yield savings certificates, propelling Vorcaro, 42, from relative obscurity into a life of opulence.
He was first arrested in November while waiting to board a private jet on the same day Brazil’s central bank ordered Master’s liquidation. The businessman was later released on condition that he wear an electronic ankle tag.
Although no formal charges have been brought, the bank’s collapse has reverberated through the establishment because of Vorcaro’s cultivation of high-level contacts across politicians, judges and public officials. Critics say it amounted to a vast influence-peddling network.
The arrest warrant issued on Wednesday alleged the existence of an “intimidation” cell co-ordinated by Vorcaro and including a former police officer, which gathered personal data on critics and discussed physical threats.
In WhatsApp messages with one of the arrested associates, cited in the document, Vorcaro said he wanted to “break all the teeth” of a reporter.
A representative for Vorcaro said in a statement on Wednesday: “He never intended to intimidate or threaten journalists and that his messages were taken out of context.”
Vorcaro said in the same statement: “I don’t remember my phone conversations, but if at any point I became agitated in messages in the past, I did so in a private, venting tone, without any intention of intimidating anyone. I have never ordered or would ever order aggression or any kind of violence.”
The arrest warrant also alleged attempts to conceal financial assets following Vorcaro’s release from prison, as well as improper access to the systems of Brazil’s federal police and public prosecutor’s office and to international databases, including Interpol and the FBI.
The scandal has threatened to damage the credibility of Brazil’s highest court. Justice Mendonça took control of the investigation last month after his colleague, José Antonio Dias Toffoli, stepped down from the case following accusations of conflicts of interest.
A police investigation revealed Toffoli had previously exchanged messages with Vorcaro. The judge was also a shareholder in a family company that sold a stake in a luxury resort to a fund that Brazilian media reported was ultimately controlled by Vorcaro’s brother-in-law, Fabiano Campos Zettel. Toffoli has denied receiving money from either man.
An arrest warrant was also issued for Zettel. It alleged he was involved in making payments to people who monitored Vorcaro’s rivals and in recruiting a central bank employee.
Zettel’s defence team said he had already presented himself to the federal police. “Despite not having had access to the subject of the investigations, Fabiano is fully available to the authorities.”
Additional reporting by Beatriz Langella
