PGR e PF impõem condição para aceitar nova delação de Vorcaro

Negotiations for a new plea bargain attempt involving banker Daniel Vorcaro began last week in two separate meetings between his lawyers and members of Brazil’s Office of the Attorney General (PGR) and Federal Police officials. According to people involved in the talks, there has been no meaningful progress yet, because no concrete proposal has been put forward. Still, one condition has already been made clear in both meetings: if Vorcaro truly wants an agreement, he must stop presenting himself as a victim and instead admit to the crimes under investigation.

His first proposal, rejected on the 20th, was considered insufficient because it repeated little that investigators had not already discovered and was seen as selective, appearing to protect some people while omitting facts that should have been obvious. Sources close to the negotiations say this was largely because Vorcaro refused to accept responsibility for the events that led to his arrest in November.

One example cited by investigators involves Senator Ciro Nogueira of the PP party in Piauí. Vorcaro’s attachments did not mention the alleged monthly payment of R$500,000 or luxury expenses such as trips and dinners in Europe. They did, however, mention a business partnership used as a vehicle in the scheme and did not address the presentation of the so-called “Master amendment,” which proposed increasing the coverage of the Credit Guarantee Fund from R$250,000 to R$1 million for investors buying bank certificates of deposit.

Because the description of the senator was so mild, investigators reportedly nicknamed that section “the beatification of Ciro.” The first proposal also failed to include details about Cláudio Castro’s alleged influence on investments by Rio de Janeiro’s state pension fund, Rioprevidência, in securities linked to Banco Master.

One member of the negotiation team concluded that if Vorcaro does not change his approach, abandoning the defensive narrative and the claim of being a victim, adding more annexes will not help. In the investigator’s view, a plea bargain requires a confession of crimes and cannot be used as a form of defense.

Vorcaro’s lawyers also have a parallel task: rebuilding ties with the Supreme Federal Court’s rapporteur in the case, Justice André Mendonça. According to reports, the defense lost direct access to Mendonça’s office after his former lawyer backed the proposal Vorcaro had offered. Vorcaro also told the justice that he would appeal to the Supreme Court’s Second Panel if the cooperation agreement were not approved, which Mendonça interpreted as a threat. Since then, the magistrate has only communicated with the defense in writing, through formal motions.

After the proposal was rejected, Vorcaro left a special detention room at the Federal Police headquarters in Brazil’s Federal District and was moved to a transit cell that his lawyers said had much worse conditions than the previous facilities he had occupied since his arrest in March. Later, Mendonça authorized his return to the original room, which had also been used by former President Jair Bolsonaro before Bolsonaro was transferred to the 19th Military Police Battalion in Brasília.

The move was seen as a reset in the negotiations. The next step now depends on whether Vorcaro is willing to stop casting himself as a victim and accept criminal responsibility in order to advance toward a deal.