As the international press reported Vorcaro’s arrest and turnaround in the Master case: ‘a touch of violence to the scandal’

Vorcaro spoke to Alexandre de Moraes about saving Master The second arrest of Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Banco Master, and the details that came to light in recent days about the banker’s network of contacts with politicians and judges and his apparatus to intimidate opponents also had repercussions in the international press. The British newspaper Financial Times stated that the arrest represents “a significant escalation in the investigation into suspected fraud and money laundering at Banco Master, which went bankrupt last year with losses estimated at more than R$40 billion, in Brazil’s biggest bank failure in a generation.” Vorcaro had been detained in November last year, at São Paulo international airport, in Guarulhos, and released a few days later, when his preventive detention was replaced by monitoring with an electronic ankle bracelet. Last Wednesday (4/4), he was arrested again, taken to a provisional detention center in Guarulhos and then sent to the Potim penitentiary, in the interior of São Paulo, as part of the third phase of Operation Compliance Zero, by the Federal Police, which investigates suspected fraud at the financial institution. On Thursday (5/3), Federal Supreme Court Minister André Mendonça authorized his transfer to a maximum security federal penitentiary in Brasília, which should happen this Friday. “The second arrest of the bank’s CEO adds a touch of violence to the scandal in Brazil”, says the title of the report on the financial news platform Bloomberg, referring to the suspicions, revealed by the third phase of the PF operation, that the banker had a kind of “personal militia” to monitor and threaten opponents, former employees and journalists. “The new investigation also went beyond the white-collar crimes for which Vorcaro had previously been charged,” says the Bloomberg text. In this sense, the report mentions the comment made by Vorcaro in a WhatsApp group about the desire to “break all the teeth” of journalist Lauro Jardim, from the newspaper O Globo — an episode that was also highlighted by the Associated Press coverage of the case. According to the PF investigation, the message — “This Lauro, I want to have him beaten up. Break all his teeth. In a robbery” — would be directed to Luiz Phillipi Machado de Moraes Mourão, who would lead the operational part of the group nicknamed “the gang”, which would work for the banker, monitoring and coercing opponents and enemies. Identified in PF documents by the nickname “Sicário”, which means “gunman” in Spanish, Mourão allegedly tried to commit suicide after being arrested on Wednesday (4/3). Bloomberg also details Vorcaro’s mentions of several high-ranking figures in Brasília, including senator Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI), who the banker called “one of my great friends in life” in an exchange of messages with his girlfriend. The information circulated after the leak of a series of messages from the businessman’s cell phone extracted from the breach of Vorcaro’s telephone secrecy and forwarded by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) to the CPMI of the INSS in Congress. In the communication, the businessman also reported meetings with the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), and with Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes. “The newly released messages give a clearer sense of the degree of familiarity he maintained with high-ranking figures,” says Bloomberg. ‘They shake confidence in some of the most powerful institutions in Brazil’ The report also draws attention to another aspect of the Master scandal revealed in the text of Minister André Mendonça’s decision that authorized the arrest of Mourão, Vorcaro and his brother-in-law, Fabiano Zettel, in the new phase of the PF’s Operation Compliance Zero. “The court document offered one of the first indications of how Vorcaro allegedly managed to exert influence on Brazil’s main financial regulatory body,” the report states, referring to the Central Bank. “According to investigators, he paid the former director of the Central Bank, Paulo Sérgio Neves de Souza, and Belline Santana, who headed the monetary authority’s banking supervision area, to advise him on regulatory matters.” This point was also highlighted in the coverage of the Reuters news agency, which noted that the news about the involvement of the two civil servants “caused a great commotion in Brasília, threatening to push the institution even deeper into a scandal that is only growing.” Souza and Santana were also targets of the PF operation. They were removed from their respective positions by order of Mendonça and began to be monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet. “The revelations expand the radius of impact of the explosion around Vorcaro, owner of the liquidated Banco Master, whose fall exposed a network of influence and conflicts of interest that undermine confidence in some of the most powerful institutions in Brazil”, says the text. The report recalls the “unusual interventions” of the Federal Audit Court (TCU) and the STF questioning the bank’s liquidation, which took place in November 2025, “despite neither of the two bodies having banking supervisory authority”. “They were unable to stop the investigation, but doubts about the banker’s disproportionate influence increased.” The BC’s initiative to liquidate the bank, according to Reuters, “reinforced the vision of the regulatory body as a bastion of pragmatic public servants, resistant to Brazilian politics.” This impression, however, “was undermined on Wednesday by the Federal Police, who claimed that Vorcaro probably bribed” Souza and Santana “in exchange for tips and advice.” When contacted by Reuters, the BC stated that it would not comment on the implications of the case for its reputation or on regulatory decisions involving the two employees. In a public statement, the authority stated that the Federal Police investigation was essential to clarify the facts and that any violations would receive appropriate sanctions in accordance with the law. Vorcaro’s defense questioned the accusations, while Zettel’s said that he is at the disposal of the authorities and that he does not know the content of what was charged against him. BBC News Brasil tried, unsuccessfully, to contact the defense of BC employees.

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