The CPI (Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry) on Game Manipulation and Sports Betting of the Federal Senate approved this Tuesday (12) requests for players Luiz Henrique, from Botafogo, and Bruno Henrique, from Flamengo, to speak about suspected betting irregularities .
The dates for the testimonies have not yet been defined. In the case of the Botafogo player, attendance is mandatory because a call-up has been approved. Bruno Henrique was invited and may choose not to attend the CPI.
The two are targets of investigations into betting irregularities.
Bruno Henrique’s defense said in a statement that the athlete “has a successful career shaped by ethics and correctness” and denied the player’s participation in any illegality (read more below).
As revealed by SheetLuiz Henrique is investigated in Spain on suspicion of involvement in an alleged “criminal organization dedicated to manipulating results in sports betting”.
In a document from the Ministry of Justice, Luiz Henrique is linked to businessman Bruno Lopez de Moura, appointed as head of the results manipulation gang that generated Operation Maximum Penalty.
Moura would act, according to the Goiás Public Ministry’s accusations, as an intermediary between bettors and players, paying them to manipulate results by receiving deliberate yellow cards, for example. In the first two phases of the operation, 15 athletes were reported, most of them from small and medium-sized Brazilian football teams.
Bruno Henrique, in turn, was the target of an operation by the Federal Police and Gaeco (Special Action Group to Combat Organized Crime), from the Federal District Prosecutor’s Office, on Tuesday (5), which investigates possible card manipulation to benefit sports bettors.
The player is being investigated for a yellow card he received in the 50th minute of the second half of the match between Flamengo and Santos, for the 2023 Brazilian Championship.
The game was played at Mané Garrincha, in Brasília, so the investigation is carried out by the Federal District Prosecutor’s Office in conjunction with the Federal Police, which joined the case because it was a first division game.
In the play, the athlete Soteldo, then at Santos, is close to the corner flag and risks a dribble over Bruno Henrique. The red-black player tries to stop him, and referee Rafael Rodrigo Klein calls a foul.
After the yellow card, Bruno Henrique received a straight red card for complaining. Santos won 2-1.
The report that gave rise to the operation shows total returns of R$13,850 in bets from three different houses for the player to take the card.
The information appears in a report by Ibia (International Betting Integrity Association), hired by Conmebol (South American Football Confederation), which only forwarded the complaint on July 29, 2024 to the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation).
According to this report, one “operator” had approximately R$6,100 in return at Betano, another received R$4,700 at GaleraBet and a third received R$3,050 at KTO. The STJD (Superior Court of Sports Justice), which analyzed and archived the case, considered the values ”insignificant” when compared to the athlete’s salary.
Contacted at the end of October to talk about the accusations, Luiz Henrique’s office declined to comment.
Bruno Henrique’s defense stated that he filed a request to archive the investigations and analysis of the information that was provided by the three bookmakers mentioned in the process to Ibia. “Neither the Federal Police nor the Public Prosecutor’s Office attempted to assess whether the technical-scientific method for producing and extracting the data on which the complaint was based was duly observed.”
