INSS: a company that moved millions and operated from a ghost address

A company whose address is indicated in the Federal Revenue as being in Jardim Botânico, Federal District, transferred, in just two months, almost R$4 million belonging to the entities investigated in the case known as INSS Farra.

The company in question is Prime Assessoria e Consultoria Financeira LTDA, also registered as TI Assessoria Financeira. Registered as a micro-enterprise – classification assigned to companies with an annual turnover of up to R$360,000, the company was opened on January 2, 2025, inside a condominium.

THE Metropolises He went to the address and found that there was only accommodation there. According to a condominium employee interviewed by the report, the project was never registered in the residential area, leading to speculation that it was a shell company.

According to the worker, in the house designated as the company’s headquarters lives a man whose name is not mentioned in any official TI Assessoria document. The portal attempted to contact the resident, but was unsuccessful.

According to the report of the Financial Activities Control Board (Coaf) sent to the INSS CPMI, the money managed by the company comes from deposits and withdrawals made by the Brazilian Association of Pensioners (AAB) and the Federation of Family Farmers and Rural Entrepreneurs of the Center South and Southeast, linked to Conafer.

AAB and Conafer are under investigation for applying illegal reductions to INSS pensions and pensions.

Incompatible performance

According to the data, TI Assessoria received, in two months, concentrated resources from the associations surveyed and distributed these amounts to more than 500 counterparties. Of the total amount transferred to the company’s account, R$1.97 million correspond to credits and R$1.95 million to debits.

The project’s $1 million turnover attracted the attention of the Money Laundering Prevention (PLD) monitoring system, which classified TI Assessoria’s revenues as “incompatible” with its “profile, era of existence and size.”

According to the PLD system, “no information has been identified that would explain the movement” of TI Assessoria Financeira values. Furthermore, in the company’s account, “no balance was maintained” due to the “rapid drain of resources.” After the wave of millionaires, the CNPJ was closed on May 5, four months after its opening.

The report reveals that one of the company’s partners is Thamyrez Maia de Oliveira, CFO of Conafer. The woman, according to a statement made by the president of the association, Carlos Roberto Ferreira Lopes, to the CPMI of the INSS, is the wife of the president of the Instituto Terra e Trabalho (ITT) Vinícius Ramos da Cruz – one of the people arrested in the illegal rebate system. Vinícius is Lopes’ brother-in-law.

As Lopes revealed to CPMI, the institute acts as the “execution arm” of several entities, including Conafer.

Head office at the same address

The National Confederation of Family Farmers (Conafer) and the Brazilian Association of Pensioners (AAB) have their headquarters in the same commercial building, located in the southern commercial sector of Brasilia, in the Federal District.

The information, which differs only by the room number, appears in the National Register of Legal Entities of the institutions and was granted to the Union when the companies were established. The CNPJs in fact remain active, with the same data, with the Federal Revenue Service.

Both Conafer and AAB are on the list of Administrative Accountability Proceedings (RAPs) launched by the Office of the Comptroller General in September this year.

Conafer, for example, allegedly embezzled at least 640 million reais from pensions associated with the institution. On November 17, the federal police issued an arrest warrant against the leaders of the association. The president, Carlos Roberto Ferreira Lopes, has not been located. He is appointed head of the system which had political, financial and command centers to commit the frauds.

The Brazilian Association of Pensioners, in turn, would also be responsible for the embezzlement of millionaires’ funds. The AAB, according to the investigation, had requested reductions in benefits for people who died decades ago. An investigation carried out by the CGU revealed that the institution inappropriately requested, in more than 27,000 cases, the inclusion of associative reductions for deceased people.

Faced with these facts, the INSS Joint Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPMI), responsible for investigating fraud, approved a request to summon Dogival José dos Santos, president of the AAB, to testify before the Federal Senate. On November 6, parliamentarians asked the director of the institution to lift banking and tax secrecy.

Church owners in DF

THE Metropolises found that before leading the association, Dogival was a driver. He and Lucineide dos Santos Oliveira (another AAB partner) own evangelical churches located in the capital of the Republic.

One of these churches, in the woman’s name, is in the Recanto das Emas (DF) region. Curiously, at the same address as the religious institution, a company belonging to Samuel Chrisostomo do Bomfim Junior, accountant at Conafer, is registered.

THE Metropolises He is there and finds only the religious institution, built between a catechetical center and a wasteland. Despite this, according to Federal Revenue data, Samuel’s store is active in the space, which suggests that it is a shell company.

Other different CNPJs in the name of Samuel and Lucineide operate in a town house in the same administrative region. In addition to the duo’s businesses, companies belonging to Cícero Marcelino de Souza Santos, advisor to the president of Conafer, operate at this address.

Cícero – who even declared, during the CPMI, that he had earned “a few dollars” with the money that should have gone to INSS beneficiaries – was arrested on November 17, during a PF operation.

On October 16, during his testimony, Cícero admitted to opening businesses to provide services at the request of Carlos Lopes. He said he received the payment slips from the Conafer entities and then made the payments. He also stressed that he does not know Samuel Chrisostomo, although he has a CNPJ from an institution based in the same place as this man’s businesses.

Santos also denied knowing where the resources received by Conafer came from. However, he and his wife have reportedly transferred 300 million reais from the institution since 2019.

During the CPMI, Cícero companies were identified as orange companies. “The only thing I see here at this CPMI is that the people the unions help are the leaders themselves and their families, the leaders’ companies, their family members, or the oranges and their family members. And you are an orange person, your companies are orange companies,” said MP Adriana Ventura (Novo-SP).

Operation

The Federal Police (PF) and the General Controller of the Union (CGU) launched, on November 13, a new phase of Operation Without Discount, an investigation which targets a national system of unauthorized associative reductions on retirements and pensions. The action mobilized teams in 17 states and the Federal District.

In total, 63 search and seizure warrants, 10 preventive arrest warrants and several precautionary measures were executed. Among those arrested are:

Alessandro Stefanutto – former president of the INSS;
Antônio Carlos Antunes Camilo, known as Careca of the INSS;
Vinícius Ramos da Cruz – president of the Institute of Land and Labor (ITT);
Tiago Abraão Ferreira Lopes – director of Conafer and brother of the entity’s president, Carlos Lopes;
Cícero Marcelino de Souza Santos – businessman linked to Conafer; And
Samuel Chrisostomo do Bonfim Júnior – also member of Conafer.

The targets are distributed in Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo, Sergipe, Tocantins and the Federal District.

How the program worked

According to the investigation, the suspects proceeded by entering false data into official systems to include beneficiaries in fictitious associations or entities. From there, improper monthly deductions were made directly from the payments of retirees and pensioners, many without any knowledge of the charges.

The targets are under investigation for forming a criminal organization aimed at obtaining financial benefits through social security fraud, as well as for active and passive corruption aimed at facilitating fraudulent access to INSS systems.

Investigations are also underway into asset concealment, allegedly used to make it difficult to trace embezzled monies.

The other side

THE Metropolises He attempted to contact those involved in this report by email and telephone, but received no response. The space remains open for future events.