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RIO – Frederick Wassef, who was a lawyer for the Bolsonaro family, was the subject of a search and seizure this Wednesday morning after a request from the Lava Jato prosecutors of Rio de Janeiro to try Judge Marcelo Bretas, of the Seventh Court Federal of Rio.
Wassef was quoted in the speech of businessman Orlando Diniz, former president of Fecomércio. In a report from the Financial Activities Control Council (Coaf), in July of this year, it was noted that the Wassef office received a total of R $ 2.6 million from Nagib Eluf Sociedade de Advogados. This office is suspected of a major deviation, of R $ 4.47 million, in the scheme outlined by Diniz. In reality, the services were not provided and some of the money went to Wassef, according to the investigation.
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In total, there were six payments, between 2016 and 2017, from Nagib Eluf’s office to Wassef. GLOBO discovered that the office was hired by Diniz and then subcontracted Wassef to allegedly handle the leaking and falsifying documents.
According to investigators, Eluf’s hiring was just a way to hide Wassef’s hiring. The suspicion is that Bolsonaros’ former lawyer has laundered money diverted from the Fecomercio-Rio scheme.
“The context described reveals that the ELUF & SANTOS ADVOGADOS office was the alleged recipient of the money that, in fact, was destined for FREDERICK WASSEF and MÁRCIA ZAMPIRON. prosecutors wrote in the search and seizure request.
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According to the search and seizure request, Diniz reported in the winning collaboration that the prosecution Luiza Eluf was “hired to coordinate internal investigations related to leaks already underway.”
Diniz told prosecutors that Luiza Eluf “appointed Frederick Wassef to handle the matter of the contract, acting on behalf of his office” and that “he believes that Frederick Wassef could not be hired directly because his wife owned a technology company in information”. with problems in the courts. “Diniz admitted to attending the house of Wassef and his ex-wife Maria Cristina Boner, in Brasilia, and that the lawyer was also at the Fecomércio headquarters.
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However, Diniz said he did not approve of Wassef’s services and that he “disappeared for long periods” and that “this caused him wear and tear.” Asked by the MPF about “the actual provision of services”, Diniz said that the hiring “was not worth it, not even because of the amounts charged by contract.”
The MPF also cited a new Coaf report that also pointed to more transfers from Bruna Boner, daughter of Frederick Wassef’s ex-wife, to the former Bolsonaro family lawyer. The report records a total of four transfers between March and September of last year for the amount of R $ 437 thousand and was transferred by Bruna based on the values of the company Peach Tree Empreendimentos Imobiliários. Coaf also detected a suspicious transaction of $ 300,000 with an offshore Panama.
In August, GLOBO showed that Bruna made transfers in the amount of R $ 2.3 million to Wassef between December 2018 and May of this year. Wassef claimed that the transfers were the payment of a loan. Bruna Boner is the daughter of Maria Cristina Boner, founder of the Globalweb Outsourcing holding, Bruna’s company.
The lawyer Frederick Wassef defended Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Republicans-RJ) until June of this year in the case of the fissure in the MP-RJ. He left after Fabrício Queiroz was detained at his home in Atibaia, in the interior of São Paulo.
The operation called E $ burns S, a partnership between the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and the Federal Police (PF) and the Federal Revenue Service, seeks and seizes 50 addresses in Rio, São Paulo and Brasilia, including the companies involved and others. offices and companies, because in addition to the diverted amounts there is suspicion of misappropriation of more than R $ 200 million.
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Among the targets is also the Teixeira office, Martins Advogados, of the lawyer Roberto Teixeira, partner of Cristiano Zanin Martins, responsible for the criminal defense of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
They are joined by the offices of former first lady Adriana Ancelmo, Eduardo Martins, Ana Tereza Basilio, attorney for Governor Wilson Witzel in the prosecution process, Tiago Cedraz and Cesar Asfor Rocha are also among those investigated.
The arrest warrant was issued by Judge Marcelo Bretas, head of the 7th Federal Criminal Court of Rio de Janeiro. The accused are suspected of fraud, embezzlement, influence peddling, exploitation of prestige, active corruption, passive corruption, money laundering, membership in criminal organizations and tax evasion.
Other side
In a statement, Frederic Wassef denied participating in the Fecomércio scheme or having worked for the federation and stressed that he was not denounced like the other lawyers. “Whistleblower Orlando Diniz is deliberately lying about me at the behest of unscrupulous attorneys who are using him as a guided missile to target me in order to serve the interests of another common client. According to Wassef, an investigation is already underway to determine “criminal plan and engineering” were prepared to use the snitch to hit him.
Also by note, María Cristina Boner said that she found out about the matter in the press and that “all financial transactions were legal, correct and within the normal range and that she will be able to demonstrate in due course.” He also said that “she has an interest in clarifying the complaint as soon as possible, even without knowing the hypothetical suspicions raised against her disadvantage, that of her daughters or family businesses, the businesswoman determined the immediate collection and analysis of her bank statements.” and tax documents, by accounting analysts “.
The lawyer Cristiano Zanin also published a note in which he defines the operation as an “attempt to intimidate” his work, which “unmasked the arbitrariness of the car wash.” He also said that Judge Marcelo Bretas is linked to President Jair Bolsonaro and that the decision “is linked to working in favor of a whistleblower assisted by lawyers linked to Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.”
The lawyer Caio Rocha said that his office “never provided services or received any amount from Fecomércio” and that the prosecution’s accusations “are processed for a contract that never ended.”
César Asfor Rocha assures that “the assumptions of the Public Ministry have no connection with reality” and that he never provided services to Fecomércio and Orlando Diniz.
Basilio Advogados reports that he acted between 2013 and 2017 in more than 50 cases of Fecomércio, both in the State and Federal Courts. “All of our attorneys work ethically and legally. The firm trusts the courts and is available for any clarification,” he said in a statement.
