Payment receipts and bank statements from Gardênia Morais, a former employee of the deputy (PL-SP) at , indicate that she returned part of her salary to people linked to the parliamentarian while she worked in the office.
The practice is a maneuver that consists of the transfer, by a public servant or service provider, of part of their remuneration to politicians and advisors.
The information was and confirmed by Sheet.
When contacted, Gardênia Leite said she would no longer talk about the subject. The deputy also did not respond to requests for a position from the Sheet sent to advisors.
The deputy’s former chief of staff, Raphael Azevedo, also did not respond to questions sent by email. His current chief of staff, Diego Ramos, told G1 that he was unaware of the suspicions, from a period prior to his work, and that he was convinced that Mario Frias did not know either.
Gardênia Leite worked for Mario Frias from February 2023 to May 2024. According to another cabinet official, she was based in São Paulo.
The documents accessed by G1 total R$35,116 in transfers, but Gardênia said that more money was returned. The transfers were made to Raphael Azevedo, his ex-wife and another relative of the two.
In addition, the former employee would also have made a Pix of R$1,000 to Maria Lucia Frias, the parliamentarian’s mother, in January 2024, and paid a card bill for Juliana Frias, the deputy’s wife, in the amount of R$4,832.32.
The records also indicate that she took out five loans in her name, totaling R$174,886 – only one of which would be for personal use.
Gardênia told G1 that more people returned their salaries and that this was part of an agreement that involved the chief of staff with the deputy’s knowledge. She would be advised to transfer the amount between several accounts to make it difficult to track the amounts.
“My salary gradually increased. At the Chamber we have ‘steps’. In the end, it was around R$20,000. I had, on average, R$6,000 to R$7,000 left. I paid it back every month, according to my ‘step'”, Gardênia told the portal.
Over the 15 months she worked in the Chamber, she worked in five positions as parliamentary secretary.
“The deputy was aware of all the returns. It was an initial agreement, the deputy always participates. And then the day-to-day dealings took place with Azevedo, who at the time was the chief of staff, the deputy’s right-hand man”, he told G1.
Raphael left his position in February 2024. Before becoming Mario Frias’ chief of staff, he had already worked as an advisor to state deputy Gil Diniz (PL-SP) and the PSL, former party of .
Congressman Mario Frias is the executive producer of the film “”, about Jair Bolsonaro. According to messages revealed by Intercept Brasil, he participated in Flávio Bolsonaro’s (PL-RJ) negotiations with banker Daniel Vorcaro in search of money to finance the film.
Vorcaro, and the money ended up going to the Havengate fund to pay for the feature film.
The term “rachadinha” became popular in 2020, when accusations against Flávio Bolsonaro emerged. In November of that year, the Rio de Janeiro Attorney General’s Office denounced the politician on charges of leading a criminal organization to collect part of his former employees’ salaries for his own benefit. The practice would have diverted R$6 million in public resources from Alerj (Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro).
The senator denied the suspicions. The investigations were closed in 2021 after the STF (Supreme Federal Court) and the STJ (Superior Court of Justice)
Another case of this type involved deputy André Janones (Avante-MG), who in March 2025 signed an agreement with the PGR (Attorney General’s Office), in which he committed to paying R$131,500 to the Chamber of Deputies as compensation for damages.
