Senator Weverton Rocha (PDT-MA), deputy leader of the government in the Senate, was one of the targets of Operation Without Discount, of the Federal Police (PF), this Thursday, which is investigating a system of undue discounts on retirement and pensions from the National Institute of Social Security (INSS). The executive secretary of the Ministry of Social Security, Adroaldo da Cunha Portal, was placed under house arrest and removed from his position as “number 2” in the department.
Romeu Carvalho Antunes, son of businessman Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes, known as “Careca do INSS”, was arrested during the police action. Another target of a search and seizure warrant was lawyer Eric Fidelis, son of former INSS director André Fidelis.
52 search and seizure warrants and 16 preventive arrest warrants are being executed in the Federal District, Maranhão, Senator State, São Paulo, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco and Minas Gerais.
According to the PF, these actions aim to deepen investigations and “clarify the practice of crimes of insertion of false data into official systems, constitution of a criminal organization, social security fraud and acts of concealment and dilapidation of property”. The operation is carried out in partnership with the Controller General of the Union (CGU).
In May, O GLOBO showed that one of the main characters in the INSS fraud scandal, “Careca do INSS”, was at the senator’s house in Brasilia during a “costelão” (rib barbecue). The two men also met in the Senate. Data on the offices visited by Antônio Antunes was requested, but the Senate, chaired by Davi Alcolumbre (União-AP), never authorized it.
At the time, Weverton confirmed the meetings. “I met Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes at a restaurant in my home, where he was taken by a guest. At the time, he introduced himself as a businessman in the pharmaceutical sector,” Weverton said in a memo sent to GLOBO.
Weverton said he received INSS’s Careca in his Senate office at least three times “to discuss the legislative agenda to legalize the importation of cannabis products for medical purposes.”
Careca, of the INSS, has become a central figure in the scandal of pensions and undue deductions from pensions. He was arrested in September. According to government estimates, four million people could have been victims of this project which generated 6 billion reais.
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