Promoter Detail Fraud Scheme in DF Retirement in 2018

Prosecutor Fabiana Giusti was surprised to learn, on the 23rd, the details of the mega-operation that the Federal Police (PF) and the Union Comptroller General (CGU) had triggered that morning in 13 states and the Federal District.

“I felt I was seeing something familiar. I thought to myself:“ My God! Everything we had already found here in the Federal District, years earlier, was now happening in a larger sphere, ”said the prosecutor, in an interview with Brazil agency. Fabiana soon understood the scope of the illegal discounts scheme in social security benefits that injured millions of retirees and pensioners throughout Brazil.

After all, between 2018 and 2020, she and other Federal District Public Prosecution Servants and Territories (MPDFT) were dedicated to understanding and identifying those responsible for a similar, albeit regional coup.

“These are two cases that reveal the fragility of a system. Especially the fragility of elderly towards this system (of leaf charges),” said the prosecutor.
The initial target of the district investigation was an alleged criminal organization accused of applying scams of precatory to former public servants of the Federal District. Until, in December 2018, the Civil Police launched Operation Strike.

With the investigated, the police seized association forms to different social organizations and authorizations for leaf debt in favor of these same entities, as well as paychecks and personal and functional data from retired district servers.

“This was a warning. What are those suspected involvement in frauds being doing with all those documents and information?” Asked the prosecutor, adding that the authorizations for associative tuition to be discounted in leaf were delivered to the district public agencies to which the victims were linked, not to the National Institute of Social Security (INSS), as occurred in the national coup.

In the course of investigations, the district authorities listened to retirees and pensioners who, according to the entities, would have authorized the discount of associative tuition. Almost everyone claimed to have been victims of a blow.

Researchers also researched the complaints for improper charges registered at DF police stations. The findings indicated irregularities in six associations, as stated in the process that the 2nd Criminal Court of Brasilia tried in November 2023.

According to prosecutor Fabiana Giusti, experts pointed out that between July 2017 and April 2019, the six entities together received about R $ 763.67 thousand from discounted associative retirees and district pensioners. However, it is not possible to need how much of this value was discounted illegally, since not all victims were identified.

“The district process has a significant number of victims. And also defendants, because it is an organization with a large number of people. We believe we have been able to identify most victims, but the difficulty in locating all is very large, as many only learned of discounts when they are called to testify.

Others were not even safe not to have associated with an entity and authorized discounts. And there are those who died in the course of the process – cases where we had to hear close relatives to investigate the facts. So we can only consider victims to those we were able to prove documentally, ”commented the prosecutor, providing details of how the coup in the Federal District worked.

“There were people who took turns ahead of facade entities and there were the (false) brokers. In general, the leaders received the documents; they claimed the discounts with the secretariats to which the victims were linked and took care of the accounting. The (false) brokers went to the victims and deceived them in exchange for commissions. Percentage of 10% to 15% of everything that was discounted later, ”said Fabiana.

“During the investigations, we found the relations between the leaders of the entities. One who was president of one organization, then was secretary or director in another. With authorization from the court, conversations were recorded in which one investigated asks another to indicate someone to take office in the association, and the second suggests a relative of his own.”

Also according to the prosecutor, in the Federal District, the fraud had the connivance of public agents, who would have facilitated the defendants’ access to personal and functional information of the victims-most of them, former health and education departments.

“In possession of the initial information, the (false) brokers sought to the victims already aware of how much they received benefit and how much they had a limit to new discounts,” added the prosecutor, explaining that, to deceive their victims, false brokers used various subterfuge, even attending the victims’ homes for long periods.

“They resorted to all sorts of office hours to deceive them. They said they needed to re-register the person to update or offer more advantageous conditions for some service, such as insurance, for example. They took a coffee, chatting, and then asked the victim to sign papers that were actually associations of investigated entities and authorizations for discounts. or another object, so that the victim could not see what it was about, ”said Fabiana.

“When the victims discovered, they found out, it was late. In conversations recorded with justice authorization, the defendants talk about how to act, even pointing to doctors as the best victims because, usually, even when retired,) have more than one source of income, earn well, do not check the paycheck and would not notice discounts,” added the promoter.

In 2020, MPDFT denounced 26 people. In November 2023, the Federal District Court ordered 17 of them in the first instance. Among these, Domingos Sávio de Castro, to whom at least four victims accuse them of being mistaken and who is using the sentence.

As Agência Brasil reported on Wednesday (13), Castro is also cited in the operation without discount, as a partner of Antonio Carlos Camilo Antunes, the Bald of the INSS, in two telemarketing companies that provided services to social organizations implicated in the national scheme. Which was not surprising the prosecutor.

“In the course of the process (district), that is, after 2020, some of the people being processed were arrested in the act (in another investigation) for the practice of similar crimes (committed) right here in the Federal District,” said the promoter, noting to be referring to Castro.

“And when I say it doesn’t cause me surprise, it is because, unfortunately, the penalty for this type of crime is very small. To arrest a stem, he has to have a very extensive record, with several convictions,” concluded the prosecutor.