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RIO DE JANEIRO -- A Brazilian Supreme Court Justice ordered the arrest of Daniel Vorcaro, the former head of a bank worth up to $16 billion in assets, in a new phase of a sprawling investigation into a fraud involving billions of reais.
In the 48-page long decision authorizing Vorcaro’s pretrial detention signed Tuesday and accessed by The Associated Press on Wednesday, Justice André Mendonça said the probe had already revealed signs of crimes by Banco Master against the finance and justice systems as well as participation in organized crime and money laundering.
Separately, Brazil’s federal police said Wednesday in a statement that they had launched raids “investigating the possible crimes of threats, corruption, money laundering and invasion of computer systems carried out by a criminal organization.”
Police said it was carrying out four arrest warrants and 15 search and seizure warrants issued by the Supreme Court in the states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais.
The Federal Police's statement did not name Vorcaro but said the raids were the third part of Operation Compliance Zero, the name given to investigations into Banco Master.
Authorities also ordered the freezing of assets worth 22 billion reais ($4.2 billion), the Federal Police statement said. It did not specify the owner of those assets.
Vorcaro had been detained in November as part of a probe into alleged fraud, but was later released.
But further investigations by Brazil's Federal Police indicate that Vorcaro was also part of a group called “The Crew,” which sought to acquire confidential information, monitor individuals considered adversaries of the group and carry out “intimidation actions to protect the interests of the core of the criminal organization,” Mendonça said in his decision.
The Associated Press could not immediately reach Vorcaro's legal representation team.
In his decision, Mendonça said Vorcaro planned on staging a robbery or simulating a similar scenario to violently harm a journalist, whose name is redacted. Local newspaper O Globo said the person in question was its columnist Lauro Jardim.
“I want to have him beaten up. Break all his teeth. In a robbery,” Vorcaro said, according to the decision.
Reports of the plan sparked indignation, with O Globo saying in a statement that it “vehemently repudiates the criminal initiatives planned against columnist Lauro Jardim, one of the most respected journalists in the country.” The outlet called for those involved to be punished to the full 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 aggression against the entire category of journalists and the society’s right to be informed.”
Back in November, Brazil's Central Bank shut down Banco Master, a bank worth up to $16 billion in assets. At the time, the director-general of Brazil’s federal police, Andrei Rodrigues, told lawmakers that the force had uncovered a 12-billion Brazilian reais ($2 billion) fraud within the country’s banking system.
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