The complaint of corruption against the mayor removed from São Bernardo do Campo, in ABC Paulista, the main target of the staff operation, does not close the inquiry into embezzlement of public money in municipal management. The São Paulo Public Prosecution Service and the Federal Police are now mapped the city contracts to identify entrepreneurs who allegedly feeding with bribes the scheme installed in the Lima government.
Two entrepreneurs are already among the accused in this first formal accusation of the Attorney General’s Office: Caio Henrique Pereira Fabbri and Edimilson de Deus Carvalho. They were arrested in the act with more than R $ 3 million in kind in the stated operation.
Researchers believe, however, that there are more entrepreneurs involved in deviations.
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In all, in the first complaint of the prosecutor, in addition to the mayor, nine other investigated are among those accused by criminal organization, corruption and money laundering.
Estadão sought contact with the defenses but, until the publication of this text, to no avail.
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The first complaint is based on evidence found in July in Paulo Iran Paulino Costa’s apartment, named as a bribe operator to the mayor. In addition to R $ 14 million in cash, there were at the address notes on payments for personal expenses of Marcelo Lima and his family, and proof of transactions. In two cell phones seized in the operator’s bunker were found dozens of messages about the scheme.
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The documents and conversations were used to justify the stated operation, launched last week, which dismissed Marcelo Lima from office, and now also underlies the accusations against the mayor and his allies.
As there are investigated prisoners, the prosecutor had to accelerate the complaint. São Paulo Attorney General Paulo Sérgio de Oliveira and Costa considered that the evidence gathered with Paulo Iran, even before the ostensive phase of the investigation, is sufficient to support the accusations.
Researchers now analyze documents and cell phones seized in the stated operation to deepen the inquiry. This material was not used in the complaint. The main goals now are to reconstruct the path of diverted money and reach others involved in the scheme.
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“Investigations continue to complete revelation of the illicit resources operated by the group, as well as the description of the entire flow of values obtained illegally by the main political actors funded by the business nucleus,” says an excerpt from the complaint.
According to the Public Prosecution Service, the partial result of the stated operation, including the seizure of high amounts in cash, brought “new elements of conviction” that corroborate the initial suspicions and “demonstrate the great use of financial resources in kind by the accused”.
Marcelo Lima is appointed in the complaint as a “central figure” of a criminal organization created to divert resources from the São Bernardo City Hall. According to the Public Prosecution Service, he has “direct influence on illicit financial movements,” “emerges as the scheme’s leader and leading articulator” and has a “final rule over the flow of resources.”
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“Mayor Marcelo Lima was not a mere passive beneficiary. The evidence show that he actively participated in the management of the scheme, dictating the rules and the flow of values,” says the MP in the complaint.
Contracts from various areas, such as health, works and garbage collection, would have been fraudulent, according to the investigation. “The explicit mention of percentages about each contract by the interlocutors in conversations denotes a consolidated modus operandi and a blatant contempt for legality,” describes the attorney general.
In addition to the conviction, the Public Prosecution Service asks the Court of Justice of São Paulo the definitive loss of the mandates of Marcelo Lima and the president removed from the Chamber of São Bernardo, Councilman Danilo Lima.
The Attorney’s Office also requested the loss of public office of servants who would be linked to corruption and the return of R $ 16.9 million to municipal coffers.
