The banker arrested for the Master scandal, Daniel Vorcaro, paid to the website “Diário do Centro do Mundo (DCM)” so that they would stop criticizing the bank and carry out a “cleaning of the banker’s image”, as pointed out by the Federal Police (PF), in documents sent to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and made public by minister André Mendonça on Tuesday (16). According to the PF, the left-wing website received payments of R$50,000 monthly to avoid negative news against Banco Master.
According to the investigators, the Diário do Centro do Mundo was “co-opted by Vorcaro’s express determination” to stop broadcasting negative news about the Master and do the opposite “against his enemies” upon payment. The amounts were passed on “to DCM and 2 other editors”, by Luiz Phillip Mourão, “Sicário”, identified by the investigation as a member of Vorcaro’s private militia, according to messages from July 2024.
A investigation also showed the banker’s irritation with negative news about Master published on the website. Messages between Vorcaro and Sicário, from September 2024, talk about “buying the guys” and “taking down the blog”, after publication talking about lawsuits against the Master.
In the messages, the banker criticizes DCM’s actions: “It has to be taken down urgently. Take this blog down once and for all. I thought we had a partnership. And we had bought the guys“. According to the PF, the conversation “suggests the intention to influence the publication’s editorial line through economic compensation, compromising the independence of the press.”
Another conversation between the two, from October 2024, Vorcaro complains again about negative news published by Diário and suggests “hiring” the site to “beat enemies”.
Shortly after the banker’s complaint and suggestion to pay the news site, Sicário sent a message saying that “DCM folks are asking about the partnership“. Vorcaro sent a message with the answer: “50k month?”. Right away, Mourão stated that he would forward the “proposal”.
The site is mentioned again in documents sent by the PF, in a conversation in September 2025, when Sicário asked the banker to arrange some payments with his brother-in-law Zettel.. “Look at Fabiano for me, the guy from DCM has even charged me (he’s disgusting). To keep the group of boys and editors there. Help me with that.” Vorcaro confirmed, only responding with an “ok”.
When the suspicion of payments to DCM became public, mentioned in Mendonça’s decision, the website said it “did not receive resources, payments or any benefits from the people investigated in the operation and has no relationship with the facts discovered”.
Defense of DCM
The Diário do Centro do Mundo published in a note that his full name was not mentioned in Operation Compliance Zerostating that he does not know what the aforementioned acronym refers to.
In the court document, there is a transcript of a private conversation in which the acronym “DCM” appears. At no point does the decision identify this acronym as Diário do Centro do Mundo, nor does it mention the name of the vehicle, its corporate name (NN&A Produções Artísticas Ltda.) or any member of its team.
The website’s lawyer, Francisco Ramos, spoke out arguing that the Diário do Centro do Mundo is not cited by name and that no journalist or DCM collaborator appears as being investigated or is mentioned in the investigations. He also denies payments or contracts with Vorcaro and says that the conversations circulating are private and of unknown context.
There is no documentary record that associates the vehicle with payments or contracts with those being investigated. Furthermore, the material that has been circulating publicly consists of alleged leaked private conversations, the authenticity, integrity and context of which are unknown, and which have no verifiable chain of custody in the public space.
DCM’s defense also says that the website’s association with Vorcaro through these conversations could be “potentially defamatory”. The note also argues that Diário do Centro do Mundo was one of the journalistic outlets that published the most articles against Banco Master and its owner, contrary to the hiring hypothesis.
