Paulo Gonet and Vorcaro Photo Tests Brazil’s Biggest Bank Fraud Case
Key Facts
One man decides whether Brazil’s largest bank collapse ends in criminal charges. A photograph taken in London has now placed him at the same table as the banker at its centre.
The Paulo Gonet and Vorcaro photo reached the public on 18 September 2026. O Globo reported that federal police had found it on the banker’s phone.
Gonet is Brazil’s prosecutor general. Vorcaro built Banco Master, the bank whose collapse left the deposit guarantee fund with a bill of R$51.8 billion, about US$10 billion.
Conversions here use 5.1575 reais per US dollar, the Banco Central PTAX selling rate for 18 September 2026.
Why One Photograph Carries So Much Weight
Brazil’s prosecutor general heads the federal prosecution service. He is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a two-year term.
His power in this case is narrower than his title suggests, and far more decisive. Under the constitution, only the prosecution service may bring a public criminal action.
For officials entitled to be tried at the Supreme Court, one person signs that charge. That person is the prosecutor general.
The reverse also holds. When he asks the court to shelve such a case, that request is as a rule treated as binding.
It is not absolute. The Supreme Court refused one in the Covaxin inquiry, holding it need not accept a request it disagrees with on the facts.
So the question of whom he knows socially is not a matter of manners. That is what makes the Paulo Gonet and Vorcaro photo a story about the case itself.
Paulo Gonet took office in December 2023, nominated by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The Senate approved a second term on 12 November 2025, by 45 votes to 26.
The Bank That Left a US$10 Billion Bill
Banco Master was a mid-sized São Paulo lender that Vorcaro took over in 2018. It grew by selling deposit certificates at rates far above the market, through brokerage platforms.
Those certificates paid up to 140% of Brazil’s interbank benchmark, against 110% to 120% at comparable banks. Savers bought them because deposits are insured up to R$250,000, about US$48,000.
On 18 November 2025 the Banco Central ordered the bank liquidated. It cited a severe liquidity crisis and serious breaches of financial system rules.
The deposit guarantee fund then set aside R$51.8 billion, about US$10 billion, for roughly 870,000 savers across five failed group companies. That is the largest deposit insurance event in Brazilian history.
The fund’s coverage ratio fell from 2.23% of insured deposits to 1.28%, against a regulatory floor of 2.5%. Other banks had to advance five years of contributions, R$32.2 billion or about US$6.2 billion, to refill it.
Where Vorcaro Is Now
Federal police arrested Vorcaro on 17 November 2025 at Guarulhos airport, as he prepared to board a private jet. A court released him eleven days later with an electronic tag.
Justice André Mendonça ordered him detained again on 4 March 2026. He has been held in Brasília since, and asked the court to revoke that detention on 18 September 2026.
He has not been charged. Police have not closed their inquiry, and no prosecution has been filed.
The final police report was expected in late September, after defence requests for more time. Conjur confirmed on 13 September 2026 that no charge had been brought.
That is the decision waiting on Gonet’s desk. The investigation runs at the Supreme Court because it reached people entitled to be tried there.
The main petition moved from Justice André Mendonça to the court’s president, Edson Fachin, on 12 September 2026.
What the London Photo Shows
According to O Globo and Metrópoles, the Paulo Gonet and Vorcaro photo was taken in London in April 2024. Metrópoles described Gonet holding a cigar next to Vorcaro, with whisky glasses on the table.
Metrópoles reported that the Federal Police found the image on Vorcaro’s phone. It reached that phone on 19 June 2025, sent by Ciro Soares, a lawyer who once defended Banco Master.
The accompanying message read “PG me mandou”. PG stands for procurador-geral, so the line reads as Soares saying Gonet had sent him the picture.
Metrópoles, TMC and Revista Fórum all read it that way. Who took the photograph has not been reported.
TMC reported that Banco Master funded a legal forum in London that month. It also reported that Vorcaro spent R$3.2 million, about US$620,000, on a whisky tasting at a private club.
Some outlets relaying O Globo placed the photo at that tasting. Gonet told Metrópoles the setting was a public legal event.
Gonet’s Response
“I did not have a close relationship with Mr Vorcaro,” Gonet said in a statement quoted by TMC. “The only meeting I had with Mr Vorcaro took place with several authorities in April 2024.”
In a statement quoted by Metrópoles, he said he has no friendship with Vorcaro and no personal interest in the cases. He described a single phone call arranged by a lawyer as “very brief and banal”.
Poder360 reported that Soares took a selfie with Gonet on 15 March 2025 and sent it to Vorcaro.
The message with it read “Liga aqui. Ele quer falar com vc”, meaning “call here, he wants to speak to you”.
Four calls between Soares and Vorcaro followed, Poder360 said. The prosecutor general’s office confirmed the London photo was authentic but declined to comment on its content.
What the Denial Is Answering
The police material Gonet is responding to goes further than a cigar.
TMC reported a message in which Gonet wrote “Oba! Tomara que tenha charuto e Macallan”, ahead of a planned second London meeting.
That means “great, I hope there is cigar and Macallan”. The second forum was later cancelled.
Poder360 reported that on 29 March 2025 Soares asked Vorcaro whether Gonet’s son could join the London trip. Vorcaro answered “Óbvio né”, which translates as “of course”.
On 11 April 2025 Vorcaro approved the expense with “Pedro e ciro ok”, Poder360 said. The reports reviewed do not establish that any such trip took place.
The Legal Test Behind the Argument
Gonet’s wording is not casual. Brazil’s code of criminal procedure lets a party challenge a judge who is a “close friend” of one of the parties.
The same grounds extend to prosecutors. That is why the denial of friendship is the load-bearing sentence in his statement.
That is the standard his statement is written to defeat. Denying friendship, and describing a single meeting with others present, addresses the precise legal test.
Brazilian law separates two ideas. Impediment concerns an official’s relationship to the case; suspicion concerns his relationship to the people in it.
The Council That Meets on 25 September
The federal prosecution service has a governing council of senior prosecutors, chaired by the prosecutor general himself. It meets on 25 September 2026 to consider a request concerning Gonet.
Deputies of the Novo party filed it, according to Agência Brasil and CartaCapital. They ask the council to appoint another senior prosecutor to handle Banco Master matters involving him.
That is a request to keep him off the case, not to punish him. Gazeta do Povo reported that the matter went to the council’s vice-president, because Gonet normally presides.
Gonet filed his written answer on 15 September 2026. The bar association had already asked the Supreme Court on 9 September that he not act personally in the main case.
Impeachment requests against Gonet were filed on 2 September 2026 by Senator Jorge Seif and by an opposition group of deputies. The Senate alone tries a prosecutor general for a crime of responsibility.
None of those requests has been admitted for processing. A separate route, removal at the president’s initiative with Senate authorisation, has not been invoked.
The STJ Judge
Folha de S.Paulo reported messages between Vorcaro and a phone number belonging to Benedito Gonçalves. He sits on the Superior Court of Justice, which decides most federal law questions below the constitutional level.
On 25 August 2026 he also took office as national judicial inspector at the National Council of Justice. That was three weeks before the messages surfaced.
The post oversees judicial discipline across Brazil.
That court matters here because it hears appeals from the non-privileged defendants, and the disputes thrown up by a bank liquidation. Vorcaro himself petitioned it in November 2025.
According to Folha, Gonçalves wrote on 17 May 2024 that he was happy to see “the friend” again after an event. On 2 July 2024 Vorcaro called him a “great friend” and proposed a meeting in Brasília.
Gonçalves replied “E aqui sempre à disposição”, meaning “and here, always at your disposal”. Poder360 reported he also sent an image bearing the phrase “tamo junto sempre”, slang for “always with you”.
Folha reported he declared himself barred from Banco Master cases in the first half of 2026. He did not comment before those reports were published.
The Court Is Entangled Too
On 18 September Justice Gilmar Mendes posted a Vorcaro message on social media to show that he had opposed the banker. Gazeta do Povo reported that the full message, dated 15 March 2024, opened with a request for help.
It began “Cara, urgente isso pra mim, preciso de sua ajuda”, meaning “Mate, this is urgent for me, I need your help”. According to Gazeta, the recipient was Vorcaro’s lawyer.
The case concerned compensation claims by sugar and ethanol producers against the federal government. The government estimates all pending claims of that kind at about R$145 billion, roughly US$28 billion.
The case was decided on 3 June 2025, and Gilmar voted against the Vorcaro-linked party. The panel ruled the other way.
CartaCapital and Metrópoles both date that judgment.
The court’s entanglement is wider than one vote. At an extraordinary session on 15 September 2026, two justices stood aside from a related matter.
Kallas and the Mendonça-Linked Institute
Revista Fórum reported on a document it described as a Federal Police information report. The Rio Times has not seen it, and the police have not publicly confirmed it.
Fórum said it cites intercepted messages including the phrases “Kallas tá longe” and “vazou”, meaning “Kallas is far away” and “it leaked”. Police read them as warnings about coming judicial measures.
Metrópoles reported that Cedro Participações, the holding company of businessman Lucas Kallas, lent about R$5.2 million, US$1 million, to Instituto Iter. Revista Fórum describes Justice André Mendonça as a co-founder of Iter.
“The intercepted messages show third parties speculating about facts they do not know,” Kallas said in a statement quoted by Fórum. He said he was never Vorcaro’s partner in mining.
Cedro said Vorcaro never had a corporate relationship with it. Instituto Iter said neither Kallas nor Mendonça took part in negotiating the loan.
Fórum reported that Mendonça announced his departure from Iter on 3 September 2026.
No Finding of Wrongdoing
No court, prosecutor or oversight body has found wrongdoing by Paulo Gonet or Benedito Gonçalves. Neither man has been charged.
Lucas Kallas, André Mendonça and Gilmar Mendes have not been charged in connection with these reports either. A photograph taken at a social event is not evidence of any agreement, favour or crime.
Messages found on a phone show what someone wrote, not what a recipient did or intended. Much of this material reached the press through leaks, and its full context has not been published.
What It Means If You Invest in Brazil
The Paulo Gonet and Vorcaro photo is an institutional risk rather than a financial one, since Banco Master is already in liquidation.
Its failure has already repriced the market. Deposit certificate rates at mid-sized banks fell from up to about 120% of the benchmark to about 106%, InvestNews reported.
What is unresolved is whether the largest bank fraud case in Brazilian history produces a prosecution. Pressure on the prosecution service and the courts can slow every ruling that depends on them.
Readers with claims against Banco Master should follow the liquidation process rather than the political coverage. Anyone pricing Brazilian legal risk should expect the October election campaign to amplify every new leak.
What Is Not Yet Known
It is not known who took the London photo. The Federal Police have not publicly confirmed the document Revista Fórum described.
Benedito Gonçalves has not explained his messages with Vorcaro in public. Ciro Soares told TMC there was no irregularity in the guest list, and that the trip never took place.
Nor is it known when police will deliver their final report, or what Gonet will do when they do.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does the prosecutor general matter in this case?
Only he can file criminal charges at Brazil’s Supreme Court, and if he asks for a case to be shelved the court as a rule shelves it.
What was Banco Master?
A mid-sized bank that grew by paying far above-market rates on insured deposits. Its collapse cost the deposit guarantee fund about US$10 billion.
Has Paulo Gonet been accused of a crime?
No. He has not been charged, and he says he met Vorcaro only once, among other authorities.
Who is the STJ judge in the messages?
Folha de S.Paulo named him as Benedito Gonçalves. He declared himself barred from Banco Master cases and has not commented.
Sources: Metrópoles, the London photo and Gonet’s reply, TMC, the London forum and Gonet’s statement, Poder360, the STJ judge’s messages, Jornal de Brasília on Folha’s report, Gazeta do Povo, the full Gilmar message, Revista Fórum, Kallas and the alleged police document, Metrópoles, Kallas, Cedro and Instituto Iter, O Tempo on the deposit fund’s losses, Seu Dinheiro on the fund’s coverage ratio, Metrópoles on the Banco Central liquidation orders, Conjur on where the case stands, InvestNews on deposit rates after the collapse, Banco Central do Brasil, PTAX dollar rate
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
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