00:00And people are calling it the biggest banking corruption scandal in the Brazilian history.
00:06Now, key figures in Brazil's far right are tied up in it.
00:09Our correspondent Brian Mir has more.
00:13When the investment bank Banco Master folded in November 2025,
00:18Brazil's government was left footing the insurance bill for hundreds of thousands of small investors
00:22who had been sold fraudulent, toxic assets.
00:25The scandal was initially weaponized against the Lula administration by Brazil's far right,
00:30but in recent weeks they've become silent as investigators get closer and closer to their leaders.
00:35The Banco Master scandal is reaching the real people who are responsible for it.
00:43Who are they?
00:44They are the people who govern Brazil between January 1st, 2019 and December 31st, 2022.
00:55The president was Jair Bolsonaro.
00:58Banco Master was authorized to operate in late 2019.
01:07Last week, federal police agents raided the home of President Bolsonaro's former chief of staff,
01:12Senator Ciro Nogueira.
01:14Nogueira, who attempted to push through legislation expanding the federally insured investment limit
01:19for Banco Master, is accused of receiving a $100,000 monthly allowance from its owner, Daniel Volcaro,
01:26and laundering it in his private businesses.
01:29Nogueira insists he's innocent.
01:31I own a chain of motorcycle dealerships that makes around $400 million per year.
01:36They accuse me of depositing $3 million into this business.
01:40This is absolutely normal in a business of this type.
01:43A lot of pieces and services are paid for in cash.
01:46On May 13th, The Intercept released leaked audio conversations between far-right presidential
01:51hopeful Flavio Bolsonaro, son of the former president, with Banco Master owner Daniel Volcaro.
01:57Flavio complains to Volcaro about late installments in the $134 million he promised to secretly finance
02:05a biopic about his dad.
02:06A group of government-aligned lawmakers has officially asked the federal police to investigate.
02:11All our actions are performed within constitutional guidance, with the limits of the law, preserving
02:18fundamental rights and guarantees, including that of the procedural secrecy when determined
02:23by the authorities, but also protecting public interests by fighting that which was determined
02:29in our plan for fighting organized crime, attacking the crime magnets at the top of the organizations.
02:36On May 14th, the federal police arrested Daniel Volcaro's father, Henrique, who is suspected
02:42of having ties to Rio de Janeiro's organized crime militias.
02:46Brian Meir, Telesur, Recife.
Comments