credit, AFP via Getty Images
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- author, Yara Deniz
- scroll, From BBC News Brazil in Sao Paulo
The request was submitted by the Novo Party, which claimed that there was financial evidence of a possible link between the fraud operators and people close to the President of the Republic, including Lulinha.
The subpoena was already on the agenda on Thursday, but was strengthened after CPMI members gained access to the testimony of a witness accusing Lolinha of receiving an “allowance” from businessman Antonio Carlos Camilo Antunes, known as Carica of the INSS.
Antonio Carlos was identified by federal police as the operator of the Social Security fraud scheme. He was arrested in September.
According to investigations, the “National Institute of Social Security man” was working as an intermediary for unions and associations, as he was receiving resources that were unlawfully deducted from retirees and pensioners, and passing part of them to the institute’s employees or to family members and companies associated with them.
Despite the mobilization, the government base was able to rally to cancel the summons for Lula’s son. There were 19 opposing votes and 12 in favour.
Former Secretary of the Communications Secretariat, Rep. Paulo Pimenta (PT-RS), stated that the subpoena was “misplaced” and that there was no evidence of the alleged relationship between Lulinha and Antonio Carlos Camilo Antunes.
In October, the Indonesian Communist Party had already refused to summon José Ferreira da Silva, Free Chico, brother of President Lula.
He was a vice president of Sindnapi, an entity investigated in a billion-dollar fraud scheme, but is not a target of the federal police investigation.
Lulinha was also not investigated by the PF in the retirement and pension fraudulent deductions scheme.
To Poder 360, Marco Aurelio Carvalho, Lulinha’s former lawyer and friend, said he was unable to speak to him, but the accusation is “absolutely inflammatory and unlikely. It’s another attempt to undermine Fabio Luis’ image.”
Indictment
“Those who don’t should be afraid. Brazil wants answers,” he said.
The request, signed by representatives Marcel Van Hatem (Novo-RS), Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE), Adriana Ventura (Novo-SP) and Luiz Lima (Novo-RJ), claimed that the hearing of Lulinha was necessary to clarify “the possible use of its accounting structure or a possible indirect connection with the scheme.”
According to O Globo, the request was motivated by the revelation that Ricardo Bembo, the national leader of the Workers’ Party, had received money from one of the companies investigated.
During the same period, he was to pay an invoice from the accountant João Muniz Leite, in charge of Lulinha’s accounts.
Pressure to summon Lula’s son increased after the CPMI learned of the testimony of Edson Claro, a former INSS employee, before the federal police.
According to the Poder360 portal, which had access to the testimony, Claro accuses Lolinha of maintaining a close relationship and even a business partnership with Antonio Carlos.
He reportedly said that Lula’s son received a sum of 25 million (without specifying the currency) from the “bald man”, in addition to an “allocation” of 300,000 Brazilian reals.
Furthermore, according to Claro’s testimony, Lolinha worked as a kind of lobbyist for Antonio Carlos and they would travel together several times to Portugal.
Edson Claro is one of the targets of the federal police investigation. He made his statement on October 29, 2025.
According to Poder360, it is not clear what kind of partnership Lulinha has established or may have maintained with INSS’s Careca based on what Edson Claro says.
Despite this, the car indicates that the citations related to Lula’s son in the investigation are many. He has been mentioned in WhatsApp chats in situations that could, in some way, help those accused of defrauding INSS.
Who is Lulinha?
Fabio Luis, known as Lulainha, is the eldest son of Lola and Marisa Letizia. He earned a degree in biology and worked as an intern at a zoo in São Paulo. Today he has companies in the technology sector.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Lula’s son became a partner in Gamecorp, which operates in the electronic gaming sector, and his name was found involved in investigations.
In 2019, the Federal Public Ministry indicted Lolinha and 10 other people for allegedly receiving undue benefits from Oy/Telemar, between 2004 and 2016.
In 2020, he was the target of Operation Lava Jato, investigated on suspicion of receiving transfers of more than R$100 million from the Oi/Telemar group to his companies, in exchange for favorable government decisions during the PT administration.
In July, the Metropolis portal reported that Lulainha had moved to Spain and would not return to Brazil until after Lula’s term ended. He was reportedly hired to work for a company in Madrid.
INSS scam
In April, a joint investigation by the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) and the Federal Police (PF) uncovered a billion-dollar fraud at the National Institute of Statistics, which robbed hundreds of thousands of pensioners through unauthorized cuts to their benefits.
According to the police, unions and associations of retirees, through agreements with the National Institute of Social Security, were able to deduct monthly payments from retirees and pensioners without a license.
It is estimated that the scheme includes discounts worth R$6.3 billion, between legal and illegal values, in the period from 2019 to 2024.
Among those investigated in the first phase of the operation were six public officials, including the then head of the National Institute of National Security, Alessandro Stefanotto. He was fired from his position after the operation and arrested in November.
In September, new people were arrested, including businessman Antonio Carlos Camilo Antunes, known as Carica of the National Institute of Security and Safety.
He was identified through investigations as having facilitated a scheme to transfer resources from pensioners and retirees.
According to the Federal Police, the companies linked to him acted as financial intermediaries for the associations investigated in the fraud case.