The owner of Banco Master, Daniel Forcaro, according to his defense, recently left the Temporary Detention Center (CDP) 2 in Guarulhos (SP), after spending 12 days in prison. Detained in pretrial detention, after federal police suspected a possible escape attempt by the businessman, Forcaro must wear an electronic ankle bracelet and comply with other restrictive measures.
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The owner of Banco Master was arrested on the 18th of this month by the National Front, when he tried to board a plane at Guarulhos Airport to leave the country. The operation, called Compliance Zero, investigates signs of fraud in transactions between Master and Banco de Brasília (BRB). In addition to Forcaro, other directors and associates were arrested. The head of the BRB has been removed from his position.
PF investigations indicate that Master may have handled approximately R$12 billion in false credit operations, loan simulations and irregular negotiations of credit portfolios with other banks.
In a memorandum distributed to the press on the 22nd, Forcaro’s defense stated that “the basis of the investigations” conducted by the National Police Forces “is a fact that does not exist.” The text says: “There is no fraud worth R$12 billion.” The banker’s defense said, “The precautionary measures authorized by the court are based on incorrect assumptions.”
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The lawyers also said that the arrest was based on general arguments. They stated that the facts contained in the investigation were not contemporary and that the Central Bank would have removed any threat of issuing a decree to liquidate Banco Master extrajudicially.
Daniel Forcaro is the owner of Banco Master
Federal police arrested the banker on Monday night (17)
In a memorandum, BRB announced that it “has always acted in accordance with compliance and transparency standards, regularly providing information to the Federal Public Ministry and the Central Bank of Brazil on all operations related to Banco Master.” BRB is a public bank controlled by the federal district government. The bank’s president, Paulo Henrique Costa, was removed from his position.
The federal police investigation that arrested Forcaro revealed evidence that BRB carried out inconsistent operations with Master in an attempt to keep Daniel Forcaro’s financial institution active while the central bank analyzed the bank’s sale offer. In March this year, BRB proposed buying Master, but the deal was rejected by the BC.
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Forcaro’s arrest was annulled on Friday 29 by Judge of the Federal Regional Court of the First District (TRF-1), Solange Salgado da Silva. It retracted the decision taken on the 20th to maintain the prison. Now, he stated that by re-analyzing the case “in light of the facts” and the documents presented by the defense, he verified “that the requirements for maintaining the strict personal precautionary measure no longer exist, and it is currently possible to replace pretrial detention with various precautionary measures.”