The federal deputy (PP-AL) purchased a jet for US$ 1 million (R$ 5.7 million, according to the exchange rate on the date of the operation), in partnership with a businessman in the field of agricultural machinery and equipment, in 2025.
The aircraft was registered in the name of a limited liability company, a model in which the identity of the partners is hidden, without disclosure.
Lira and her partner, businessman José Augusto Araújo Sousa Junior, confirmed to Sheet are owners of ACZ Aviação.
They stated that the aircraft was purchased under a quota system, for shared use, that there is no relationship with public contracts and that it was acquired legally, with all taxes paid and registrations with the competent bodies. According to the parliamentarian, they are the only partners.
The company was created on February 18, 2025, shortly after the former, and acquired the plane for less than half the amount paid by the former owner. Atrium Participações purchased the plane on April 1, 2024, exactly one year before the sale to Lira, for R$13 million.
ACZ Aviation purchased the jet on April 1, 2025 in installments for around R$5.68 million, at the dollar rate at the time. According to Lira, the lower value occurred because the aircraft needed maintenance and parts exchange. Atrium stated that it sold it for this price “due to the business need to reinforce cash to fund its activities”.
In the 2022 elections, when he was re-elected for another term in the Chamber, Lira informed the Electoral Court that he had a total of R$5.965 million in assets (or R$7 million in values adjusted for inflation for the period).
Atrium is a holding company owned by brothers Luiz Felipe Guerra de Andrade Hernandez and Ruy Guerra de Andrade Hernandez, owners of Lotus, a construction company in Brasília specializing in luxury and high-end buildings. Both entered the Forbes Brasil business magazine’s Under 30 list in 2022, as young highlights in their sector.
“During the period in which the aircraft was in the possession of Atrium Participações, there was no use of any type by the parliamentarian in question. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the partners of Atrium Participações and the partners of Lotus do not have and have never had any type of interaction with Mr. Arthur Lira”, stated the company in a note.
The aircraft purchased by the former president of the Chamber is a Raytheon Aircraft 400A, a model listed for prices between R$10 million and R$35 million in the advertisements consulted by Sheet. It has capacity for up to eight passengers and is known for reaching a high cruising speed, exceeding 800 km/h.
Its range is 2,300 km, which allows it to travel between Brasília and Maceió. Each route costs around R$11,000 in fuel alone, excluding airport taxes and hiring pilots. Renting a model like this from air taxi companies costs around R$220,000 per trip.
A Sheet discovered the existence of the aircraft by verifying that Lira did not issue tickets on airliners (which would give the right to reimbursement from the Chamber) and obtaining, through LAI (Access to Information Law), the registration of flights carried out between Brasília and Maceió in 2025.
The report monitored the planes whose behavior fit the parliamentarian’s routine. The jet acquired by the former president of the Chamber made 44 flights between Maceió, the city where Lira lives, and the federal capital last year.
On March 10, for example, Lira arrived in the federal capital from Maceió, as verified in the report after monitoring through a specific website, as this plane does not appear on conventional pages at the request of its owner.
The company in which he is registered, ACZ Aviação, was founded on February 18, 2025 under the name AFL Ltda by two lawyers from Minas Gerais specialized in creating shelf companies, Guilherme Leroy and Lucas Pereira.
Two days later, on February 20, they increased the company’s share capital from R$1,000 to R$10 million, changed the name to ACZ Aviação and appointed lawyer Maria Claudia Bucchianeri Pinheiro as director. Furthermore, the company became a public limited company, which allows the partners to be hidden.
At that moment, Leroy informed the Sheetthe company was sold to the current owners. He said he could not reveal the buyer.
Lira says she asked Bucchianeri, her trusted lawyer, to carry out the bureaucratic procedures for the company. She was nominated by the parliamentarian for one at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) in 2021, a position she held for two years. Today, she is one of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) for the Presidency of the Republic.
The lawyer spent a short time at ACZ Aviação. On March 31, 2025, just over a month after being appointed director, she was replaced by businessman José Augusto Araújo Sousa Junior. He owns Maqcampos, a dealer of John Deere agricultural equipment in the Midwest.
Maqcampos owns another aircraft, which is used by José Augusto.
The company received more than R$100 million in contracts with the federal government, from ministries such as Agriculture and Regional Development, which controls Codevasf (Companhia de Desenvolvimento do Vale do São Francisco). Around R$15 million came from transfers of parliamentary amendments – none of them to Alagoas.
In a note to SheetJosé Augusto stated that ACZ purchased the aircraft for shared use among its shareholders, with expense sharing, “as is customary in this sector”, and that the company has no relationship with any other company.
“I am one of the shareholders, I use the aircraft and I am responsible for managing the company, as I have experience with aircraft. Deputy Arthur Lira is also a shareholder of the company and, in this condition, makes use of it legitimately. Everything is regular, declared and extremely common”, he stated in the note.
Lira stated that there was nothing illegal or hidden in the purchase. “It’s a 20-something year old plane, it fits within my Income Tax. Everything clean and declared”, said the parliamentarian, who is also a rural producer. “José Augusto is a personal friend, from my private life. He took over as director because he has other aircraft and understands this”, he stated.
As president of the Chamber, the deputy had FAB (Brazilian Air Force) jets at his disposal for his travels. Allies claim that the position makes the person famous and that the use of career flights ends up causing the risk of embarrassment at airports, harassment or offenses from other passengers.
