Billion-real waste fraud in Bauru: Gaeco arrests seven, including former secretaries
Gaeco arrested seven people in Bauru (SP) on suspicion of fraud in a 5.2 billion real tender for waste management. Investigations began with reports of threats against recycling collectors.
Threats to collectors open investigation into billion-real waste tender in Bauru
According to g1.globo.com, investigations by the Special Action Group against Organised Crime (Gaeco) into suspected fraud in the largest public procurement in the history of Bauru (SP) had their origin in reports of threats against recycling collectors. Based on reports communicated by the Military Police in March this year, the Public Ministry uncovered a scheme involving former municipal secretaries, an executive from the waste sector and the former president of a collectors' association.
Last Wednesday (9), Gaeco launched Operation Trojan Horse in conjunction with the Military Police. Seven people were arrested. On Thursday (10), following a custody hearing, the court upheld the temporary detention of all those held.
The arrested and the crimes investigated
Among those detained are Cilene Chabuh Bordezan, former secretary for the environment; Vitor João de Freitas Costa, former secretary for legal affairs — at whose residence 240,000 reais in cash were seized —; Sara Moura de Jesus, former deputy secretary for the environment; Hamilton Libório Agle, owner and former CEO of Estre Ambiental company, arrested in São Paulo; and Talita de Andrade Soares Chieregatti, an employee of the same company, also arrested in the São Paulo capital.
At the same time, in an operation named Mobius conducted simultaneously, Gisele Moretti, former president of the Association of Recycling Materials Collectors of Bauru (Ascam), and her husband, Valdomiro Pereira da Silva Filho, were arrested.
The investigations point to the crimes of procurement fraud, active and passive corruption, administrative advocacy, ideological falsity and criminal association in the process of granting the integrated solid waste management concession for the city.
From threats to collectors to the bribery scheme
Initial findings indicated that Valdomiro had links with a criminal faction and a background in drug trafficking, and used this connection to intimidate recycling collectors. From these investigations, Gaeco reached Gisele Moretti, identified as the orchestrator of an embezzlement scheme at the head of Ascam — an entity that has a contract with the municipality for recycling material collection and management of the city's recycling points. These contracts, valued at over 5 million reals, were entered into with a waiver of tender.
Public Ministry documents highlight excerpts of conversations between Gisele and Valdomiro that indicate involvement in the scheme to defraud the waste and public cleaning tender. In audio messages, the couple discuss the possibility of Gisele charging a bribe from a person they referred to as "Mitsunaga" — later identified as Luiz Henrique Mitsunaga, Gisele Moretti's lawyer. In the dialogues, receipt of "a pension" of 80,000 reais monthly without any counterpart is mentioned, and even payments of the order of 100 million reais.
The Public Ministry emphasises that during the period of monitoring the conversations, the waste tender notice had not yet been published by the municipality, but the dialogues already demonstrated that Gisele was seeking ways to protect her interests in light of the concession, which would also affect the city's selective waste collection.
The "Trojan Horse" inside the secretariat
The name of the operation refers to the central strategy identified by prosecutors: the presence, at the top of the Municipal Environment Secretariat, of agents with economic and professional ties to the beneficiary company. This infiltration would have made it possible to direct the rules of the procurement process "from inside" municipal government.
From a dialogue between the couple recorded on 11 May, Gaeco expanded monitoring to include the other investigated parties. The names of Cilene Bordezan and Hamilton Libório Agle appear in wiretaps of the couple's conversations.
The suspended tender and municipal impact
The investigated tender provided for a 30-year contract, with an estimated total value of 5,259,651,116.06 reais — the largest public procurement in Bauru's history. The tender, however, was suspended by the Court of Accounts of the State of São Paulo (TCE-SP) following reports of irregularities.
The Bauru Municipality dismissed the three arrested secretaries and also the co-ordinator of Public Policies for the Environment, Roldão Neto, appointing new interim heads for the respective departments. In parallel with the Public Ministry investigations, the Bauru Municipal Chamber established a request for a Special Commission to investigate the facts.
Source: Google News BR — São Paulo