Investigations into Banco Master have been paralyzed since last Wednesday (3), when Minister Dias Toffoli decided that only he could authorize new measures related to the case, such as search and seizure operations and breaking the confidentiality of the targets of the investigation.
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In practice, Toffoli’s decision stopped the progress of the ongoing investigation at the Federal Court of Brasilia.
The hearings that were to take place shortly after the arrest of the Master executives were suspended, as were the examinations of cell phones and computers seized during Operation Compliance Zero, concerning the fraud on the 12.2 billion reais credit contracts sold by Daniel Vorcaro’s bank to BRB.
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So far, according to sources who closely follow the process, the minister has also not transmitted the Master file to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) for opinion, the next step in the procedural ritual.
Toffoli’s decision was made after analyzing a request submitted by Luiz Antônio Bull, one of the targets of the investigation into a billion-dollar fraud involving Banco Master. Bull is the Bank’s Director of Risk, Compliance, Human Resources, Operations and Technology. He was arrested by federal police last month, but was released.
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As revealed by GLOBO columnist Lauro Jardim, Toffoli traveled by private jet to Lima to watch the Libertadores final, accompanied by Bull’s lawyer, former National Secretary of Justice Augusto Arruda Botelho.
The theft took place on the morning of November 28. Botelho is the author of a request for suspension of investigations into the Master affair, within the framework of Vorcaro’s action.
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A few hours later, in the evening of the same day, Toffoli increased the secrecy of this same action, as revealed in the blog.
In the request, Botelho affirmed that the hearings of the investigation “are being scheduled, the documents seized during the searches have already been analyzed and the result of this analysis can be shared with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office” of first instance.
“The continuity of these acts, when emanating from a potentially incompetent judicial authority, compromises the validity of the investigation itself, because it nullifies acts performed outside the constitutionally established jurisdiction,” Bull’s defense said.
Filing the complaint with the Supreme Court, Vorcaro’s defense argued before the Supreme Court that the Federal Court of Brasilia was not the competent forum to conduct the investigations due to a real estate contract seized by investigators that mentioned a company owned by federal deputy João Carlos Bacelar (PL-BA).
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A few days after returning from Lima, Toffoli responded to the request of Botelho and the other lawyers and determined that the Supreme Court was the competent forum to handle the case.
This Monday, Judge Antonio Claudio Macedo da Silva rejected the appeal of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office and maintained the decision to entrust the investigation to the STF.
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