Federal Justice determined this Monday (20) the arrest of money changer Alberto Youssef, one of the whistleblowers in Operation Lava Jato. The decision was signed by Judge Eduardo Fernando Apolo, from the 13th Federal Court in Curitiba, responsible for judging the cases arising from the investigation.
The magistrate’s decision took into account information provided by the Federal Revenue Service on the money changer’s assets. According to the decision, Youssef did not return all the embezzled amounts to the public coffers and has a life incompatible with the “situation of the vast majority of Brazilian citizens”. According to the Revenue, he also tried to buy a helicopter and a plane.
In addition, the judge wrote in the decision that the main character of Lava Jato maintains several addresses and that he “would be living on the beach”.
“It should be noted that in the delation agreement, the investigated party was obliged to return only a small part of his vast assets (return BRL 1,893.00), in addition to real estate that is difficult to sell. Now, the Federal Revenue itself denounces that the investigated would have appropriated values much higher than the agreed values”, said the judge.
Eduardo Apoyo also understood that the whistleblowing agreement signed with Lava Jato does not cover the new accusations. “The agreement signed between Alberto Youssef’s lawyers and the task force of the MPF in Curitiba does not, in my interpretation, cover the present procedure, insofar as it would be a generic blank letter that would involve any and all criminal investigations, including crimes that were not even discovered on the date the agreement was signed”, he concluded.
Youssef was arrested in Itapoá, north of Santa Catarina, and will be taken to Curitiba to undergo a custody hearing. The money changer responds to 28 processes in Lava Jato. According to the rules of the delation agreements, 13 of them were suspended for a period of ten years. The penalties add up to more than 32 years of imprisonment.
The report tried to contact Youssef’s defense, but did not get a response until the close of the matter.
