The São Paulo court upheld the pre -trial detention of businessman Celso Éder Gonzaga de Araújo, appointed as a lobbyist and financial operator of the scheme that would have moved more than $ 1 billion in bribes at the State Finance Secretariat.
Celso was arrested in Operation Icarus, launched on August 12. A task force of prosecutors from the State Prosecutor and Federal Police agents and delegates arrested businessman Sidney Oliveira, from Ultrafarma, and executive Mário Otávio Gomes, statutory director of Fast Shop. Both are now loose.
Income Tax Auditor Artur Gomes da Silva Neto, from the State Finance Secretariat, was also arrested on suspicion of leading bribes scheme in exchange for the early release of ICMS credits for retail giants. In all, nine inspectors are under investigation.
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The Federal Police went to the house of lobbyist Celso Éder Gonzaga de Araújo in Campo Grande to search and seized more than $ 1.2 million in cash, and dollars, euros, cryptocurrencies and two emerald packages, which led him to prison for suspected money laundering.
The defense has called for the revocation of pre -trial detention claiming that he has no criminal record, is undergoing health problems and offers no risk to investigations.
Lawyer Suzana Camargo argues that Operation Icarus resulted in the collection of all necessary evidence, in the abduction of goods, the stoppage of Celso Éder business activities and the seizure of documents, cell phones and computers, “eliminating any risk to procedural or public order”. Suzana also pondered that other investigators are free, which she said would configure “unjustified unequal treatment”.
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The Public Prosecution Service spoke out against the revocation of the arrest. Celso was reported last week by corruption and money laundering. According to the complaint, tax auditors offered a kind of clandestine advisory to companies seeking ICMS refund. These companies had privileged treatment from beginning to end of the process, the inquiry points out. They received detailed guidance on the necessary documentation and aid to file the requests at the Treasury Department. In a second stage, the inspectors acted to accelerate the requirements, passed in front of the line, and to release the refund requests.
The São Paulo court concluded that, in a preliminary analysis, there is sufficient evidence of the involvement of the corruption scheme in the farm of São Paulo and that, if it is released, he could hide evidence, combine versions with other investigated and even try an escape.
“The continuity of precautionary custody, at the present time, is not only supported by the severity in the thesis of the imputed crime, but, above all, in proof that the release of the investigated reflects effective and imminent risk to legal assets protected by the order. From this perspective, the decree of pre-trial detention and its maintenance is necessary, necessary and proportional to the particularities of the specific case,” says the dispatch.
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The decision also highlights the “expressive concrete gravity of the imputed conduct” to the lobbyist and mentions that Celso “had full knowledge of the facts and exercised active participation in the dealings with business representatives”, collaborating with the tax agents Artur Gomes da Silva Neto and Marcelo de Almeida Gouveia, also denounced by the Public Prosecution Service, “both in the perception of improper advantages and the execution of operations intended for the gunning of criminal values”.
“The investigations have demonstrated the direct and conscious involvement of the investigated in a criminal scheme, reinforce the associative bond between those involved and reveal the effective participation of the accused in the context of criminal conduct under investigation, demonstrating the direct connection with the activities and records that relate to the investigated core”, follows the decision.
The decision also mentions that Celso’s bond with the inspector Arthur “extrapolated the mere negotiating scope, configuring a relationship of high mutual confidence”, as the entrepreneur administed the inspector of the inspector, which was discovered from documents seized in his house in Operation Icarus.
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Arthur is named the “head” of the scheme. The mother of the tax auditor, Kimio Mizukami da Silva, 73, a retired teacher of the São Paulo public network, transferred R $ 16.7 million to Celso companies between June 2022 and January 2024. The elderly is in formal records as owner of the company Smart Tax, which said investigators was created only on the role to incorporate allegedly paid bribes.
According to the decision that upheld the arrest, “it cannot be ignored that much of the illicit values is still in the possession of the criminal group, resulting in the possibility of evasion.”
“The accused acted in the context of a criminal group intended for crimes involving the movement of significant amount of money, being a complex group and easily in the reintegration of members in illicit activities. The particularities and complexity of the crime show the concrete risk of proof destruction, as well as the communication between the members of the criminal group,” the magistrate follows in the dispatch.
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The court also concluded that, despite the medical documentation presented, it was not proven “extreme weakness” of the lobbyist’s state of health, nor the impossibility of receiving appropriate treatment in prison.
