SP Police investigate the role of civil servants in the burial of a fake doctor

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Two employees of , in , are the target of investigation by the Public Ministry of Sorocaba, in , for alleged involvement in the irregular release of a corpse of an indigent, used in the staging of the burial of the fake doctor Fernando Henrique Guerrero (featured image), accused of murder and illegal practice of medicine.

According to documents attached to the process, obtained by Metropolisesthe body would have been removed from a municipal health unit with the help of employees linked to the public funeral service, who . The Civil Police discovered that Fernando Henrique faked his own death to escape justice.

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servers would have sold the body for R$5,000 to a fake doctor

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residential address became the scene of the death hoax.

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Document used by defendant had non-existent name and seal, says MPSP

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Fake doctor allegedly faked his own death to escape murder charges

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Guerrero surrendered in Guarulhos after months on the run

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Investigations indicate that between January 6th and 10th, 2025, the internal system of the Guarulhos Health Department recorded the entry and subsequent exclusion of an unidentified male corpse. This interval coincides with the date of Fernando Henrique’s false death, as stated in the death certificate presented by the defense, which indicated “multiple organ failure and sepsis” as the cause of death.

In a report, prosecutor Marcos Fábio de Campos Pinheiro described that there are “strong indications that the body used in the false burial was diverted from a municipal public unit, with the participation of local employees”, adding that “the exclusion from the registry and the subsequent use of the body point to the existence of collusion between public agents and the defendant.”

The fake hospital and wake that never existed

The death certificate indicated the place of death as Hospital Brás Cubas, in the Vila Lanzara neighborhood, in Guarulhos. The address, however, does not correspond to any registered hospital, but rather to the fake doctor’s own residence, used as the basis for fraud. “The document does not originate from a qualified notary’s office”, says an excerpt from the opinion of the São Paulo Court of Justice ().

The burial, according to the court document, would have taken place at the Campo Santo Necropolis, on January 10, 2025, with the declarant identified as Ricardo Rodrigues dos Santos. The Prosecutor’s Office verified that no burial was registered on that date in the specified cemetery.

Servers under suspicion

Two municipal employees — whose names are kept confidential — are being investigated for intermediating the release of an unidentified body that was in the custody of the Municipal Funeral Service. In a statement attached to the process, one of the employees stated:

“I received an order to release the body, they said it would be for teaching use and that there would be no irregularity, as the corpse had no known family.”

Another server, also in testimony, denied participation in the scheme, but confirmed having seen “unusual” movement. “There was a withdrawal at night, with no record in the physical book. When I asked, they told me it was a confidential case, with superior authorization.”

The Public Ministry is investigating whether there was a payment of between R$3,000 and R$8,000 for the diversion of the body. The Guarulhos Central Legal Medical Institute was contacted by investigators to provide a list of unidentified corpses removed during the period, but reported that there were no corresponding records, reinforcing the hypothesis of internal deviation.

The fraud dismantled

The hoax was only discovered after the Public Ministry received communication from the 2nd Civil Court of Guarulhos, reporting that the supposed dead man had signed a paternity document two months after his own “death”.

Thereafter, the judge revoked the death certificate and reinstated Guerrero’s arrest warrant. In a statement, prosecutor Marcos Fábio de Campos Pinheiro wrote that the forgery of a death certificate, associated with the manipulation of a corpse, “reveals a sophisticated method of procedural fraud and administrative corruption, the scope of which goes beyond the individual interest of the defendant”.

The investigation was forwarded to Gaeco (a group that investigates organized crime), which established its own procedure to investigate ideological falsehood, passive corruption and vilification of a corpse (crime of disrespecting a body).

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Death in Sorocaba

Fernando Henrique Guerrero is responsible for the murder of Therezinha Monticelli Calvim, aged 67, which occurred in September 2012, in Santa Casa de Sorocaba. He presented himself as doctor Ariosvaldo Diniz Florentino, although he never trained or registered as a health professional.

In the process, witnesses stated that Guerrero treated patients and prescribed medications. A nurse said, in testimony, that “he wore a lab coat, stamp and said he was the new general practitioner on duty. We only discovered that he was not a doctor after the patient died.”

The case ran for more than ten years until, in 2025, the defense presented the falsified death certificate trying to eliminate the punishment.

What the city hall says

In a note to MetropolisesGuarulhos City Hall stated that it opened an internal investigation to investigate the conduct of employees. The process states that the two professionals were preventively removed from their duties.

The inquiry was opened in August 2025 and runs parallel to the Gaeco investigation.

How it should have been

• Identification and custody: Unidentified bodies are collected by the IML (Legal Medical Institute), where they undergo necropsy and fingerprint collection. The IML reports the case to the city hall, which must keep the body for up to 15 days awaiting family recognition;
• Authorization for burial: After the deadline, the body is sent to the Municipal Funeral Service, upon formal authorization with registration number, place of destination and coffin seal. The data must be cross-referenced between the IML, the funeral service and the civil registry office;
• Public burial: Burial takes place in a municipal cemetery, with nominal or “indigent male/female” registration, accompanied by a protocol and map of the block and tomb.

Where the system failed

• The body was released without formal protocol, using a registry that was later deleted.
• The IML did not receive notice of allocation.
• The registry office received a certificate with a false digital seal.
• The burial was registered in a non-existent cemetery.
• The result was the creation of an official death without an identified body and a fictitious burial with a real body — a combination that bypassed all legal controls.

A dead man with no name for a living man with guilt

For the Public Ministry, the case symbolizes “the degradation of public control over death”. Prosecutor Pinheiro summarized, in a recent petition, that “while the real dead person is erased from the records, the criminal makes himself die to erase his crimes. The State, in this case, was an accomplice by omission.”

On June 24, 2025, Guerrero surrendered to the police at the 1st Police District of Guarulhos. The Public Security Secretariat () confirmed at the time that he attended the police station accompanied by a lawyer, remaining at the disposal of the Justice Department. His capture took place after a new arrest warrant was issued by the São Paulo Judiciary, due to the discovery of the death fraud.

The investigation is now trying to find out who the man buried in his place was and who helped bury him.