The dismissal of Victor Linhares de Paiva from the position of municipal secretary of Institutional Articulation of Teresina on Monday (3), two days before the start of the operation, raised suspicion on the part of the Civil Police of Piauí of leaking privileged information to one of the main allies of the senator (PI), president of the .
The Civil Police, linked to the Rafael Fonteles (PT) government, opened an investigation to investigate the case. The communications office of Mayor Silvio Mendes (União Brasil), sponsored by Ciro, states that the change was technical and political and had been planned for months. Federal deputy Julio Arcoverde (PP) took over the portfolio in Linhares’s vacancy.
Carbono Oculto 86 is an offshoot of an operation by the São Paulo Public Ministry and Federal Police that targets the relationship between the criminal faction (Primeiro Comando da Capital), gas stations and fintechs.
According to the Piauí Public Security Secretariat, the group used a complex structure of shell companies, investment funds and fintechs to launder money and defraud the sector. The estimate is that the scheme generated R$5 billion.
Linhares was the target of a search and seizure, but was not found at his residence and has not been interviewed by the Civil Police to date. The report was also unable to contact him for a position.
The suspicion of information leakage is also related to the fact that two other targets, businessmen Haran Santhiago Girão Sampaio and Danillo Coelho de Sousa, traveled to São Paulo and Brasília, respectively, on the eve of the operation.
Furthermore, empty watch boxes were found in the targets’ homes, which raised suspicions that they had been rushed and hidden.
As reported by , Linhares would have received R$230,000 from Haran Sampaio, former owner of the HD gas station network, which would be the epicenter of the criminal scheme in Piauí, and that is why the Civil Police intends to listen to him.
The transfer took place through an account opened by Linhares at , a fintech that became one of Carbono Oculto’s main targets in São Paulo.
Linhares worked in Ciro Nogueira’s office between 2018 and 2019 and in the leadership of the PP in 2020. The senator is also the godfather of one of the former secretary’s daughters.
Sought by the Panel to comment on his relationship with Linhares and the Civil Police investigation into the operation’s leak, the senator did not comment.
A July report showed that Linhares received R$625,000 from Fernando Oliveira Lima, Fernandin OIG, a businessman in the online betting sector and friend of Ciro Nogueira, between December 2023 and September 2024. In the same period, Linhares transferred R$35,000 to the senator’s personal account.
Nogueira told the magazine that the amount was a refund for a hotel reservation in Capri, Italy, and that the R$625,000 was payment for a luxury watch, negotiated directly between the businessman and his former advisor.
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