00:00For the past several weeks, a banking scandal has been dominating the headlines in Brazil.
00:04Though it has implicated top allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro,
00:08the media is using it to damage the credibility of the federal government.
00:12Our correspondent, Barbara Mir, has more.
00:15The scandal is transforming Brazil's political landscape during an election year.
00:20In 2025, Banco Master, a private financial institution,
00:24was liquefied by Brazil's central bank after it was discovered to have committed fraud
00:28by selling 12 billion reais in unbacked securities.
00:33As more information surfaced, much based on unverified leaks published by conservative media corporations,
00:40former CEO Daniel Vorcaro was arrested on March 4th.
00:49There is an institutional crisis underway.
00:51The result of this for the rural administration is that the popularity of the president who is running for regulation
00:57has fallen.
00:57One of the reasons for this is because voters are associating the scandal with the government.
01:03This is false. It is a fraud because there is no relationship with the federal government whatsoever.
01:08To the contrary, it was the federal government which opened the investigation,
01:12but many voters don't see it this way.
01:20Vorcaro was a well-known supporter of the Bolsonaro coalition.
01:23His brother-in-law, Fernando Zetel, was Jair Bolsonaro's largest campaign donor.
01:28Vorcaro let popular bolsonarista congressman Nicolas Ferreira use his private jet to campaign for Bolsonaro in 2022.
01:36Furthermore, federal police evidence suggests that Bolsonaro's central bank minister,
01:40Campos Neto, suppressed attempts to investigate Banco Master during the fraud.
01:47Investigators showed that Bolsonaro appointee Polo Sosa,
01:50the central bank's ex-auditing director,
01:53and Bellini Santana,
01:54who was nominated by Bolsonaro's central bank president Campos Neto,
01:58received money from Daniel Vorcaro
02:00to block an audit of Banco Master.
02:03Why didn't Campos Neto act against Vorcaro's fraud
02:06when he was president of the central bank?
02:09Evidence implicating dozens of top Bolsonaro allies,
02:13including SĂŁo Paulo governor TarsĂsio Freitas
02:15and federal district governor Ibanez Rocha,
02:18is being ignored by Brazil's mainstream media
02:20in favor of sensationalist coverage aiming to delegitimize the Supreme Court
02:25due to the fact that the law firm of Viviane Morais,
02:29wife of Alexandre,
02:30the conservative Supreme Court justice
02:32who oversaw the case that resulted in Jair Bolsonaro's imprisonment,
02:35had a lucrative contract providing legal aid to Banco Master.
02:43The Banco Master case is clearly being weaponized
02:46by the Brazilian far right
02:47to try to reduce the approval rate for President Lula da Silva.
02:51They are trying to transmit the idea
02:52that all of the public institutions are roting,
02:55that the system is rotten
02:56due to a crisis that has hit the Supreme Court.
02:59Since the public has a hard time differentiating
03:02between the executive and judicial branches of government,
03:06this ends up affecting President Lula's approval rating.
03:12Weaponized media coverage is cited as one of the reasons
03:15that jailed former President General Bolsonaro's son Flavio
03:18is now running neck and neck with President Lula
03:21in preliminary polls for the 2026 presidential elections.
03:25Brian Mir, Telesur, Recife.
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