Federal Police Target Guedes in Investigation for Fraud in Government Pension Funds

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The investigation is one of the main priorities of Operation Greenfield, which uncovered more than one billion Reais of losses in Brazil’s largest pension funds.

The case was disclosed in 2018, during the election campaign, when the Federal Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) announced its investigation into suspicions that Paulo Guedes had teamed up with executives to commit fraud in deals with state-owned pension funds.

Jair Bolsonaro‘s “super” minister has raised at least R$1 billion (US$200 million) from these institutions in six years. He is also under investigation for allegedly issuing and trading securities with no collateral or guarantees, obtaining and investing resources from seven funds.

Among the pension funds involved are Previ (Bank of Brazil), Petros (Petrobras), Funcef (Caixa), and Postalis (Correios), in addition to BNDESPar (investment arm of the National Bank for Economic and Social Development).

The transactions were conducted from 2009 onwards. According to the MPF, there are “significant indicators that, between February 2009 and June 2013, the directors/managers of the pension funds and of the joint stock company BNDESPar” consorted “with entrepreneur Paulo Roberto Nunes Guedes, manager of the HSM Group”.

The alleged intention was to commit “crimes of fraudulent or reckless management of financial institutions and issuance and trading of real estate securities without collateral or guarantees.”

The case became the target of investigation by the Federal Police in November of the same year and is also the target of the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU).

Notwithstanding, Guedes took some of those under investigation with him to the Ministry of Economy. In January this year, Esteves Colnago, who was charged by the Federal District Prosecutor’s Office for his involvement in the R$5.5 billion breach in one of the country’s main pension funds, was promoted by Guedes to head the Ministry of Economy’s Special Office for Institutional Relations.

Colnago was denounced for “reckless management” by the Federal Police Operation Greenfield.

Source: Fórum

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