On December 4, 2024, the president received the then owner of Master at Planalto and said that the operation should not be carried out and that the Central Bank would soon have a new president
The president (PT) advised Daniel Vorcaro not to sell Banco Master for a symbolic value to BTG Pactual, owned by André Esteves. The advice was given personally by Lula to Vorcaro in a message on December 4, 2024.
At that time, Master was already in difficulties. Journalists Fabio Serapião and Natália Portinari (from the portal UOL) (for subscribers) this Sunday (May 17, 2026) more information about what this initial plan was considered by Vorcaro, based on a document obtained by the Federal Police and not yet shared with the Federal Supreme Court – where the case of Operation Compliance Zero is reported by Minister André Mendonça.
According to the UOLthere is a message from Vorcaro from April 10, 2025 in which he sends a proposal on what the sale operation to BTG would be like. This plan was reported in part by Drive, do Poder360in an edition of January 27, 2026 (read ). THE Drive reported that Vorcaro had already told Lula about this possibility of selling to BTG at the meeting held in Planalto in December 2024.
The meeting at Planalto allowed the banker to ask the President of the Republic for advice: “BTG, owned by André Esteves, wants to buy my bank for R$1. I don’t want any confusion. Should I sell or stay in the market? We want to reduce banking concentration in Brazil, president”.
Lula listened and responded by using some swear words to refer to the then president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, whose term would end a few days later. There was also criticism directed at André Esteves, CEO of BTG Pactual. And the President of the Republic’s main advice to Vorcaro was to continue with Banco Master, without accepting Esteves’ proposal. Gabriel Galípolo was present at the meeting, who in January 2025 became head of the monetary authority.
Vorcaro understood Galípolo’s presence at the meeting and Lula’s criticism of Roberto Campos Neto as an incentive to continue with the Master.
There is one about contacts between Master representatives and the Central Bank. 65 face-to-face meetings have been held since 2018 between Master and the Central Bank. Only they were 24 meetings in the management of 6 years by Roberto Campos Neto (2019-2024) and 41 meetings already during Gabriel Galípolo’s term as president, in the first 11 months of the year 2025.
At the time of the December 2024 meeting, it was already known in the financial market about Master’s immense difficulties in honoring its commitments – the sale of CDBs offering yields well above the market average. Vorcaro presented himself to authorities as a person interested in breaking the monopoly of the big banks. He argued that this was why there were so many rumors against him and his institution. Lula liked the speech. He saw a possibility of changing the configuration of the Brazilian financial system – dominated by 3 large private banks (Bradesco, Itaú and Santander) together with Banco do Brasil and Caixa Econômica Federal.
The president in December 2024 was also dissatisfied with statements by André Esteves, from BTG, suggesting flaws in economic policy and signaling that the next head of the Brazilian Executive could be someone opposed to the PT. For this reason, Lula saw in Vorcaro someone capable of helping the left to have a greater presence in Faria Lima, the name of the avenue in the city of São Paulo that is synonymous with the financial market.
This one of December 4, 2024 was articulated after a formal hearing recorded in the agenda of the head of the Personal Office of the Presidency, Marco Aurélio Santana Ribeiro, known as Marcola. The hearing was reported to have taken place on December 4th, but only entered the system officially on December 27th of that year, with Guido Mantega, former Minister of Finance, listed as a participant. He acted as Vorcaro’s representative and lobbyist in Brasília.
At the meeting, Lula received Vorcaro accompanied by the then Minister of the Civil House, and invited Gabriel Galípolo, then already designated to be the next president of the Central Bank, to participate. Galípolo was director of Monetary Policy at the time and did not take care of regulating the financial system. Also participating (Minas e Energia) and Augusto Lima, then CEO of Banco Master.
The presence of Rui Costa (who was governor of Bahia for 2 terms, from 2015 to 2022) and Augusto Lima, an entrepreneur from Bahia who maintains excellent relations with politicians from that State, were relevant at the meeting.
Lima was also briefly arrested for Operation Compliance Zero. He was released and the Federal Police never showed interest in investigating him again. He was the great organizer of Chamado, a system of payroll loans that he had sold to Master and boosted the growth of Vorcaro’s bank – in addition to becoming a partner in the bank. On July 24, 2025, Lima left Master and stayed with another bank owned by Master, Voiter (later transformed into Pleno). The Central Bank, already under the command of Gabriel Galípolo and aware of the existence of fraud, delivered Voiter to Lima.
When Vorcaro discussed at the December 2024 meeting the concentration of the banking system and the performance of larger banks in the market, the President of the Republic responded that the issue was up to the BC and said that issues of this type should be dealt with technically by the monetary authority. Lula recommended that Vorcaro maintain the Master and recalled that the municipality would soon have a new president, replacing Roberto Campos Neto – whose term would end on December 31, 2024 and until the media reported it much later.
The fact is that Vorcaro left the meeting with Lula happy: “It was amazing”he celebrated with his then girlfriend, , as with one of his cell phones in the possession of the PF. “He called the president of the central bank who will come in” e “3 ministers”says Vorcaro. Martha reacts with an onomatopoeia-style exclamation: “Wowwwwwww”. And it says: “I’m dying to know everything”.
With Lula’s advice not to sell his bank to BTG, Vorcaro negotiated in March 2025 with BRB, the state bank that belongs to the Federal District government. But soon afterwards this operation began to be bombarded by everyone in the financial market. There was a risk of it not being completed – and it wasn’t, because the Central Bank, but only much later, in September 2025.
The portal’s report UOL this Sunday (May 17, 2026) reports that the PF found messages from Vorcaro to his then partner Augusto Lima on April 10, 2025, again talking about the plan to sell Master to BTG. The then owner of Master was looking for ways out, as the operation with BRB was experiencing resistance.
“Brother for the love of God. Don’t pass this on to anyone”wrote Vorcaro at 8:46 pm on April 10, 2025, according to records on his cell phone and which were released by UOL. “Of course, brother. You’re crazy”replied Augusto Lima shortly afterwards.
These messages demonstrate that Vorcaro may have quickly realized that the operation with BRB announced in March 2025 would not work. And that perhaps it would be more appropriate to return to the previous plan – the same one he had already reported to Lula in December 2024 – of selling Master for a symbolic value to BTG – something that also never happened.
