Former tax auditor Artur Gomes da Silva Neto, arrested since August accused of leading a billion-dollar corruption scheme in the São Paulo Finance Department, acted irregularly beyond the limits of São Paulo.
According to a report produced two weeks ago by the Federal Revenue Service and the Ministry of Finance, Neto and his group transmitted, as of 2021, 3,216 declarations of federal tax compensations, resulting in the elimination of R$1.74 billion in taxes such as PIS and Cofins for companies that hired him.
“The group’s actions demonstrate full awareness of the frauds committed against the tax system, revealing the objective intention of getting rich quickly through illicit means, to the detriment of public assets”, says the report from the two bodies sent to the São Paulo Public Ministry.
At the state level, Artur was arrested along with businessman Sidney Oliveira, owner of Ultrafarma, the statutory director of Fast Shop, Mário Otávio Gomes, as well as businessman Celso Eder Gonzaga de Araújo, accused of being Neto’s accomplice. Of the four, only the former auditor remains in closed custody.
The defendants transferred more than R$1 billion in bribes in the state scheme — the other companies involved are also being investigated and prosecuted by the MP-SP.
Ultrafarma and Fast Shop were also mentioned in the Federal Revenue document as beneficiaries of million-dollar tax compensation. While the first obtained R$121 million in credits, the second received R$2.7 million. As agreed in the contract, Neto’s group’s commission varied between 20% and 30% of the total reimbursed.
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In a statement, Fast Shop said it did not have access to the report “and, therefore, is completely unaware of the value mentioned. (…) The company reiterates that it continues to collaborate with the authorities.” Ultrafarma’s press office says that the company is collaborating with the investigation and that the information provided will be clarified during the process.
Nationalization plan
Last August, O GLOBO showed that Neto had plans to further nationalize his federal scheme. At the time, documents obtained through breach of telematic confidentiality, such as telephone and email, showed contracts signed with Ultrafarma.
Called a “draft contract/federal project”, one of the emails shows Neto sending a lawyer the details of the agreement between Ultrafarma and the accounting firm Providence Consultoria Tributária Digital, based in Santa Catarina.
Among the objects of the agreement are “minimization of risks with the Brazilian Federal Revenue Secretariat” and “survey and validation of possible credits, main and accessories with the Brazilian Federal Revenue Secretariat”.
At the Federal Revenue, unlike what happened at the São Paulo Treasury Department — a body in which Neto held a management position and authorized the credits that he himself had launched, in addition to often inflating reimbursements — the federal amounts were not easily released, even after hiring the former auditor. Still, the group did not reduce its investments and promised more resources than the companies were actually entitled to. According to investigators from São Paulo, the former auditor called this difference — between what the companies thought they would reimburse and what was actually their right — “ore”. To increase this gain, the defendants invested in special software.
As O GLOBO showed last week, Artur Gomes da Silva Neto tried to reach a plea bargain agreement with the São Paulo MP, but the body did not accept the terms, claiming that the accused omitted the existence of R$100 million in cryptocurrencies. When contacted via lawyers, the former auditor did not respond.
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