Questions about the connections between the minister of the (Supreme Federal Court) and , owner of , have grown since the first relationship between the two was revealed by Sheetin January, and can be answered throughout the Federal Police investigation into the case.
The minister is not investigated by the PF —this could only happen with authorization from the Supreme Court itself—, but,, researchers they suspect financial crimes in funds linked to the Tayayá resort, of which the magistrate’s family is a former partner, and are moving forward with the investigation.
The PF elaborated on the relationships between Toffoli and Vorcaro and delivered the document to the president of the STF, Edson Fachin, in February. The PF’s findings were not enough for Fachin to authorize an investigation against the minister, but they caused the departure of , which was handed over to minister André Mendonça. Now, any progress in the investigations against Toffoli will depend on Mendonça’s decisions.
In this report, the PF included dialogues between Vorcaro and his brother-in-law Fabiano Zettel in which they discuss payments to Toffoli. In them, there are indications that the former banker minister.
The first connection between Toffoli and Vorcaro came from showing that a resort in the interior of Paraná, Tayayá, had as partners a company owned by two of the minister’s brothers and a fund that is part of the fraudulent network attributed to Banco Master.
At the time, in the bodies investigating the case. In December, the magistrate called for a confrontation between Vorcaro and the director of Ailton de Aquino.
The measure placed Aquino as one of those being investigated, following Vorcaro’s line of defense at the time, that the monetary authority had been hasty in decreeing Master’s liquidation in November.
Faced with the repercussion, the minister changed the request to individual statements, which took place on December 30 —.
The partnership in the resort located in Rio Claro (PR) began in September 2021, when Maridt Participações SA, the minister’s company, sold half of its stake in the project to the Arleen investment fund for just over R$3 million.
Arleen integrates an extensive chain of resources used by Master, according to investigations by the PF and the Central Bank. The fund’s controller is Fabiano Zettel, pastor and financial operator from Vorcaro, through another fund, Leal.
Vorcaro’s brother-in-law in the second half of 2022.
Maridt left the partnership in the companies that make up the Tayayá group in February last year, when the remainder of its stake was acquired by businessman Paulo Humberto Barbosa.
Barbosa is a lawyer from Goiás who worked several times for JBS, a company in the J&F group. When he bought Arleen’s stake in Tayayá, the fund no longer belonged to Zettel, but to Alberto Leite, a businessman friend of Toffoli who held shares in the fund for less than a year.
At the time of the revelation of SheetMinister Dias Toffoli did not say that he was also a partner of Maridt. He only made the revelation on February 12, after the PF produced a report on relations between Toffoli and Vorcaro.
In May 2024, Vorcaro asked Zettel, via WhatsApp message, what the situation was with the transfers. “Didn’t you resolve the contribution from the Tayayá fund? I’m in a bad situation”, wrote the banker.
The brother-in-law replied: “I asked you if it could be next week and you said yes.”
After that, Zettel presented the list of payments for Vorcaro to approve. In that list, one of the lines stated: “Tayaya – 15″. For the PF, it was a transfer of R$ 15 million to the project. Vorcaro replied: “Pay everything today.”
In August 2024, Vorcaro returned to deal with collections with his brother-in-law. “That Tayayá deal wasn’t done?” asked the banker.
Zettel responded that he had already passed it on to the intermediary responsible for making the payment, but that the final contribution would depend on that person.
Vorcaro got angry. “Where’s the money?” he said to his brother-in-law. Zettel replied: “The fund owns Tayayá. I transfer his shares.”
To account for the charges, Vorcaro asked Zettel to collect all contributions made to Tayayá. “Tell me everything that has been done to date.” The brother-in-law then replied: “We paid 20 million back then. Now another 15 million.”
In a note sent by Toffoli when the PF report was made public, the minister said that he “never had any friendly relationship, much less an intimate friendship, with the investigated Daniel Vorcaro” and that he “never received any amount from Daniel Vorcaro or his brother-in-law Fabiano Zettel”.
Maridit, states Toffoli in a note sent this Friday (20), is a family company, constituted as a privately-held corporation, registered with the Commercial Board and providing annual declarations to the Federal Revenue Service.
“Its declarations to the IRS, as well as those of its shareholders, have always been duly approved,” he stated.
“Minister Dias Toffoli is part of the corporate structure, with the aforementioned company being managed by relatives of the Minister”, he added, which is permitted by the Organic Law of the Judiciary.
Regarding the sales of shares in Tayayá to the Arleen fund and to Paulo Humberto, Toffoli stated that “everything was duly declared to the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service and that all sales were made within market value”.
Daniel Vorcaro’s defense declined to comment.
