The one in Rio de Janeiro launched an operation this Wednesday morning (25) to investigate the management (), of a private bank that had been closed for six decades. The possible fraud aimed at a dispute over the ownership of court orders and land worth billions of dollars.
According to the police, investigations showed that from 2024 onwards “a group of false shareholders had managed to re-establish the registration of a bank that officially closed its activities in 1964, after a liquidation process approved by the shareholders themselves”.
“According to the investigations, the measure would have taken place despite court decisions and technical manifestations contrary to the reactivation of the institution. The group’s objective would be to claim rights to a billion-dollar credit related to the expropriation of an area of approximately 153 thousand square meters, located in Recreio dos Bandeirantes”, says the corporation.
The targets of the action, named “Operation Lázaro”, are responsible for the attempt to reactivate the bank and directors of the Rio de Janeiro Commercial Board, which made possible the reactivation of Banco Crédito Móvel. The following were searched and seized: the current vice-president, Affonso D’Anzicourt Silva, the general secretary, Gabriel Oliveira de Souza Voi, and the former president of the body, Sergio Romay.
Silva stated that he is not afraid of the investigation and that he will speak in more detail later. “We have been in this administration for five years and six months and we fear nothing”
A Sheet sent a message to Romay and the Commercial Board’s press office, but did not receive a response until the publication of this report.
BCM Ativos Imobiliários, the company involved in the case and target of the investigation, stated in a statement that it “completely rejects the accusations disclosed, expressing its total indignation at facts that are manifestly unfounded and devoid of any factual or legal basis.”
“BCM Ativos Imobiliários SA emphasizes that the current scenario is, in fact, the result of severe disputes involving relevant economic interests in the Barra da Tijuca region, as well as the actions of third parties who have been improperly and fraudulently using the name of the former bank — facts that have already been reported by the Company to the Judiciary. The attacks suffered today clearly seek to shield the true offenders and prevent the company from operating regularly”, states the company, in a note.
The reactivation of the bank was revealed by Sheet in . It involved the wife of a state deputy and business with .
The action revolves around the former Banco de Crédito Móvel, an institution considered extinct since 1964 when it owned the area that covers Barra da Tijuca, Recreio and Vargem Grande. The region is now the focus of real estate expansion with strong land disputes, in some cases involving militias.
A group sought to reactivate the bank’s registrations in Jucerja under the name BCM Ativos Imobiliários, in order to gain control of the land it claims to be its own. Two of these areas were expropriated in the 1960s and generated precatório (state debt securities) valued at more than R$1 billion, an amount that those involved also claim.
The court orders are currently in the name of the heirs of Holophernes Castro and Pasquale Mauro, former partners of the bank who took over a large part of the land after its dissolution.
The movement began in 2016, when Heitor Castro, son of Holophernes, joined a group of lawyers and businessmen to reactivate the bank. To this end, he considered himself the only partner with rights over the institution and questioned its actual extinction, claiming that it was still the target of lawsuits involving land.
The group managed to file minutes of a meeting with BCM partners at Jucerja in 2018 and obtained a CNPJ from the Federal Revenue Service. The Court determined, at the request of the other heirs, the cancellation of the tax registration.
Heitor Castro died in 2018, but his partners at BCM continued the action. Some were even indicted on suspicion of ideological falsehood, but the court closed the case in 2022.
Three other BCM meetings were held from 2022 onwards. Jucerja filed two minutes, contradicting the position of the State Attorney’s Office, which claimed it was not possible to move the bank after the 2018 court order.
The last meeting, in May 2023, created the Directorate of Strategic and Institutional Affairs due to “the large number of negotiations and political negotiations that involve the company and which are increasingly increasing”.
She also registered the acceptance of the position of Mariana Felippe, wife of state deputy Jorge Felippe Neto (PL). They were not the target of this Wednesday’s action.
The meeting also decided to transfer the bank to Brasília. The company registered the minutes of the 2023 meeting with the Commercial Board of the Federal District and received a new CNPJ. The Court ordered the revocation of the registration with the Revenue.
In April last year, the national secretary of Microenterprises, Maurício Juvenal, made decisions by the Rio de Janeiro Commercial Board.
After a long legal battle, in May 2025, two decisions were made by the federal government and the Commercial Board of Rio de Janeiro.
While their CNPJ was active, the group launched a project in 2022 with 65 high-end homes called Renew Life Residence.
In October of that same year, the Municipal Public Order Secretariat (Seop), in a joint operation with the Public Ministry, demolished 300 meters of installed siding, as well as removing chemical toilets, three reservoirs and two containers. The ministry considered that there was no license for the interventions.
A month before the demolition, one of BCM’s partners, businessman Rodrigo Garcia, was in the VIP area of Rock in Rio and took a photo with Cláudio Castro. With the two in the image was their cousin, actor Márcio Garcia, who two years later became the poster boy for the Renew Life venture.
