Abraão Lincoln Ferreira da Cruz, president of the Brazilian Confederation of Fishing and Aquaculture Workers (CBPA), one of the Brasilia-based associations under investigation for pocketing 221.8 million reais within the INSS party, was convicted in August this year of “slush fund” charges during the 2014 elections.
That year, Abraão ran for a seat in the National Congress of the State of Rio Grande do Norte. At the time, he allegedly used the bank account of a deputy secretary who was subordinate to him to receive sums not declared to the Electoral Tribunal.
According to the public prosecutor, “huge” sums were circulating in the woman’s account, used like an orange. As the agency determined, it was Abraão’s son who was responsible for withdrawing the money, when the amount was not sent to other accounts, such as that of the retiree’s wife.
The electoral investigation began after Operation Enredados took place. Initially intended to investigate environmental crimes and money laundering in the fishing sector, the action also ended up revealing material revealing the practice of electoral crimes based on the violation of the confidentiality of a suspect’s cell phone.
During the phases of the process, the Electoral Public Prosecutor’s Office identified a transfer of a military police officer in the amount of BRL 86,000 to the orange account. To the deputy, the man said he had provided services to the defendant, but could not explain the transfer. In addition to the Prime Minister, Abraão’s wife also allegedly deposited R$46,000 into the worker’s account.
In his testimony, the president of the CBPA declared that the sums deposited were the result of a “fundraising” raised by the Confederation of Fisheries to “promote national movements in the sector”. However, when asked why the money did not enter the entity’s account or even his own, Abraão refused to answer.
In the action, the retiree denied having made a slush fund and also stated that the sums would be used for the “Gritos da Pesca” event. The public prosecutor, however, indicated that, thanks to a “simple Google search”, it was possible to verify that the meeting took place at a time “totally different from the banking transactions”.
Criminal organization
In 2015, Abraão Lincoln Ferreira da Cruz was one of the 18 targets of Operation Enredados, launched by the Federal Police (PF). At the time, the investigation revealed a system of environmental crimes and crimes against public administration with ramifications in several states, with headquarters in Brasilia.
Abraão’s preventive detention was ordered on October 14, 2015. In the document, he is mentioned as the leader of the criminal organization that operated alongside the now-defunct Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture (MPA). Formal charges against Abraão included active corruption, crimes against the environment, issuance of authorizations in violation of environmental standards and crimes committed by an individual against the administration.
According to the operation, Abraão acted as leader of the group, along with other individuals, to obtain illicit administrative acts from the MPA. Actions included issuing a license for the sale of stingrays for ornamental purposes and increasing the storage capacity of these animals by orange companies.
At the request of the defense, the president of the CBPA was released in January 2016. The case is still pending before the courts.
Arrest of the president
On November 4 of this year, Abraão was arrested again, this time by the INSS CPMI for false testimony. At the time, the union leader allegedly lied that he knew CBPA treasurer Gabriel Negreiros, who is the godfather of one of his grandsons. Throughout the session, Federal Deputy Duarte Jr. (PSB-MA) presented a photo of the child’s baptism and also said that Abraão Lincoln deposited 5 million reais into a Negreiros account.
“He (Abraão Lincoln) calls it an institutional relationship to deposit 5 million reais into the account of Gabriel Negreiros, who is nothing other than the godfather of his grandson. Is being the godfather of his grandson an institutional relationship?” Duarte Jr asked.
After being pressured by the MP, Abraão Lincoln said he was confused when responding to CPMI rapporteur, MP Alfredo Gaspar, regarding the relationship with Negreiros. According to the commission, Abraão also lied on four other occasions.
The same day, the CBPA president posted bail and was released.
Bald INSS and political connections
Abraão Lincoln previously led the Republicans in Rio Grande do Norte and was a candidate for the party’s federal deputy in 2018.
He maintains relationships with party politicians, both regional and national. The influence also extends to the INSS itself.
In 2024, former benefits director André Fidelis took a per diem just to go to an entity party. Investigated by the PF, Fidelis was dismissed from his position in July last year, following information from INSS Farra.
The CBPA still appears as one of the entities that paid the lobbyist Antonio Carlos Camilo Antunes, Careca of the INSS, one of the kingpins of the scandal revealed by the Metropolises.
Only one employee
The report was located at the location where the association’s headquarters are located. In the small commercial premises, only one employee generally appears. The schedule of the woman, named secretary, also attracts attention. According to witnesses, she stays at this address about two hours a day.
According to a report from the Controller General of the Union (CGU), the CBPA “does not have the infrastructure for location, recruitment, registration and even less provision of services” compatible with the registration of thousands of members, spread across more than 3,600 municipalities. Despite this, in 2025 the association had 757,000 registered members.
According to the CPMI, which investigates fraud, of the 215,000 retirees and retirees linked to the confederation who complained about reductions, 99% would not have authorized the entity to apply deductions from their INSS benefits.
Exponential growth
The CBPA was created in 2020. Two years later, it obtained a technical cooperation agreement with the INSS – which allows reductions on services, even without having members.
Despite the lack of employees, in 2023 the number of people linked to the CBPA increased from four, in May, to more than 340,000 members at the end of the year, which generated an annual turnover of 57.8 million reais.
In the first quarter of 2024, at the height of the wave of unjustified discounts, the number of members increased to 445,000 and revenue reached 41.2 million reais during the period.
During a session at the INSS CPMI, MP Alfredo Gaspar (União-AL) described, in a critical tone, the increase in the number of registrations of the association as a success. “In 2025, they had obtained 757,000 registrations, which corresponds to more than 221 million reais over a period of two years,” said the parliamentarian.
According to information obtained by the Tácio Lohan section, from Metropolisesthe CGU suspects the confederation of having hired a telemarketing company to seek membership, which is prohibited, according to the terms of the technical cooperation agreement (ACT) with the INSS.
“Considering the month of 22 working days and 8 hours of daily work, the CBPA would have added 8,524.86 associative discounts per working day, or 17.76 discounts per minute,” underlined the organization.
“The CBPA does not have any employees registered in the RAIS (Annual Social Information List), but the amounts of the associative reductions added are so high that, even if the association claimed to have 100 employees, it is unlikely that the associative reductions of this amount would have been included in compliance with all legal and contractual formalities,” concluded the CGU.
According to the Union Comptroller General, the CBPA has also requested more than 40,000 times for the inclusion of reductions in benefits for deceased persons.
Party at the INSS
- The INSS scandal was revealed by Metropolises in a series of reports published from December 2023.
- Three months later, the portal showed that the revenues of entities offering discounts on retirees’ monthly contributions had skyrocketed, reaching 2 billion reais in one year, while the associations responded to thousands of lawsuits for fraud on policyholders’ memberships.
- The reports of Metropolises led to the opening of an investigation by the Federal Police (PF) and informed the investigations of the General Controller of the Union (CGU).
- In total, 38 articles from the portal were listed by the PF in the representation that gave birth to Operation Without Discount, launched on 04/23 and which resulted in the dismissal of the president of the INSS and then Minister of Social Security, Carlos Lupi.
The other side
At Metropolises Abraão Lincoln’s defense stated that “he appealed and the TRE-RN has not yet judged the appeal.” “Cash 2, according to the complaint, would not be counted for expenses that correspond to a negligible fraction of the total expenses declared,” said Emanuel Grilo, Abraão’s lawyer.
“At the time, there was no election spending cap and each party informed the electoral tribunal how much they would spend, so it would not make sense to deliberately withhold accountability documents,” he concluded.
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