Banco Master scandal strikes heart of Lula government in Brazil
Brazil's Federal Police have placed senator Jaques Wagner, a close ally of president Lula, at the centre of investigations into suspected bribery from Banco Master, an institution that closed at the end of 2025 leaving a 10 billion dollar hole.
Banco Master scandal strikes heart of Lula government in Brazil
Brazil's Federal Police have placed senator Jaques Wagner, a prominent figure in the Workers' Party (PT) in Congress and close ally of president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the centre of investigations. He is suspected of having received improper benefits from Banco Master, a financial institution that ceased operations at the end of 2025 leaving a deficit of approximately 10 billion dollars.
During an operation that executed 18 search warrants, authorities raided the hotel where the parliamentarian stays, as well as addresses linked to him. Approximately 90,000 dollars in cash were seized, in US and European currency. According to a ruling by Supreme Court minister André Mendonça, there is evidence of an illegal payment of 3 million reals — approximately half a million dollars — to the politician's family circle in October 2025, shortly before the bank was placed under liquidation proceedings due to insolvency.
In parallel, investigators suspect that Banco Master "gifted" the senator with a luxury apartment under construction on the 17th floor of a building in Salvador de Bahia, the city where he served as governor. Systematic transfers of funds through his wife are also being analysed. Wagner himself, in a Senate address, categorically denied the accusations, challenging authorities to present evidence against him and maintaining that his wife's commercial dealings with the bank occurred during the Bolsonaro government without his involvement.
The financial institution left behind a "black box" valued at 10 billion dollars. The revelations indicate that its owner, young banker Daniel Bork, had woven a dense network of protection and influence by offering interest rates far above market practice.
Before reaching the left, the scandal had already struck the right-wing opposition hard. Recent reports have brought to light Bork's relationship with Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. The banker is said to have financed a 10 million dollar biographical film about the former president, a fact that provoked a sharp decline in Flávio Bolsonaro's electoral polling, despite his assurances that it was strictly a private transaction.
The list of politicians under investigation also includes former Bolsonaro minister Tarcísio de Freitas and the current president of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta. Most troublingly, however, is that leaks from the investigations involve the judiciary itself, casting shadows over suspicious connections between family companies of two Supreme Court ministers and the investigated banker. Brazil faces once again the spectre of widespread institutional corruption, demonstrating that the vices of the past are hardly overcome.
Source: Philenews
Source: Philenews