President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) stated, on Sunday (22), that he sent the President of the United States, Donald Trump, information about Ricardo Magro, owner of the Refit refinery, whom he classified as “the biggest debtor in the country”. Currently, the businessman lives in Miami, Florida.
Lula also highlighted that in the meeting with Trump, which is scheduled to take place in March, he will insist on cooperation between both countries against organized crime “to put corruption tycoons in jail”.
According to him, this is one of his foreign policy priorities, so much so that he has taken the director of the Federal Police, Andrei Rodrigues, with him on all his international trips.
Lula’s statement was made at the press conference that ended his four-day visit to India, which was attended by Rodrigues as part of the official delegation. In December, the president had already mentioned in a phone call to Trump that the American authorities send “crime bosses” who are refugees in the USA to Brazil.
If the American government is willing to fight drug trafficking and organized crime, we will be willing, on the front lines, to put an end to it once and for all. We even ask them to send the bandits that are there to us. Brazilians who commit crimes, people who smuggle gasoline. Send it so we can show that we want to fight organized crime, very seriously.” said Lula. “Anything that can put the corruption tycoons in jail, we are willing to work on.”
Who is Ricardo Magro
Ricardo Magro, 51 years old, is a lawyer and the businessman at the head of the Refit Group. He is one of the central targets in the .
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Magro is officially the owner of Refit, the company responsible for the former Manguinhos refinery since 2008. The company, currently in judicial recovery, accumulates billions of dollars in debt in several states and has led the businessman to several investigations.
According to the Federal Revenue, the refinery has not collected taxes for years, in addition to having falsely declared fuel imports and using its judicial recovery to cover up financiers and maintain loss-making activities.
In August, Magro was cited in , which investigated the infiltration of the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) in the fuel segment and the financial market through fintechs. At the time, the company was not the target of search and seizure.
In December last year, the businessman was one of those involved in another investigation by the São Paulo Civil Police. The suspicion is that he used 188 different companies to commit tax crimes and launder money.
Ricardo Magro’s extensive list of investments is not limited to the fuel sector. In 2016 he was arrested for fraud in pension fund investments. In this case, the diversions amounted to R$90 million from the Petros and Postalis funds. He was also mentioned in the list of Brazilians with offshore companies in tax havens in the Panama Papers case.
