Minister Gilmar Mendes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), suspended the Federal Police (PF) operation that investigated an alleged corruption, fraud and money laundering scheme at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV). Mendes ordered the transfer of the investigation to the state court of Rio de Janeiro.
According to Mendes, the Federal Court does not have the competence to investigate people, acts and institutions unrelated to the Union, as is the case with the FGV. The minister ordered to notify the Internal Affairs of the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and the National Council of the Public Ministry (CNMP) on the grounds that there is “repeated non-compliance with decisions” of the STF on the competence of Operation Lava Jato in Rio de Janeiro by judges and prosecutors.
“I understand that there was yet another undue expansive action by the Federal Court in Rio de Janeiro, since the decision that triggered the so-called Sofisma operation does not contain specific elements indicating the competence of the first degree court to process the facts under investigation ”, he wrote in the dispatch, issued Friday (18) at night.
The minister also questioned the fact that the Federal Police operation was based on the denunciation of former Rio governor Sérgio Cabral. Mendes also criticized the blockade of assets imposed on those being investigated, as well as the ban on access by a large group of people to FGV facilities and systems.
Understand
Last Thursday (17th), Operation Sophism, by the Federal Police, served 29 search warrants and apprehension in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. According to the PF, there was a corruption scheme, fraud in bids, currency evasion and money laundering carried out by a criminal organization within the foundation. According to the PF, the scheme involved federal and state agencies, which contracted FGV without bidding.
Among the search targets were three members of the Simonsen family, founders of FGV. However, the president of the foundation, Carlos Ivan Simonsen Leal, was not mentioned in the operation.
In its defense, the FGV said that the Federal Police “reheated” themes already buried by the state court. “Therefore, it causes strangeness and deep indignation the reiteration, at the federal level, of themes already buried before the state justice that, now reheated, seriously tarnish the image of an entity that, for more than 70 years, has contributed so much to the development of the Brazil, which is currently the 3rd most respected institution in the world in its area of activity”, criticizes the institution.
* collaborated with Vitor Abdala, from Rio de Janeiro
