Federal Police Delegates Demand PGR Recusal Over Banco Master Conflict
By Hotspotnews
More than 2,000 Federal Police delegates, through their national association ADPF, have called for Procurador-Geral da República Paulo Gonet to recuse himself from the Caso Master investigation. Their statement, issued September 5, expressed “indignation and concern” after Gonet moved to scrutinize a PF report that named him alongside banker Daniel Vorcaro and STF Minister Alexandre de Moraes.
The report, produced under an order from STF Minister André Mendonça in Operação Compliance Zero, documented communications recovered from Vorcaro’s devices. Those records showed proximity between the former Banco Master controller and senior officials, including the nation’s top prosecutor. Delegates argued that Gonet’s subsequent procedure targeting the investigators who followed a court order creates an intimidating effect and places him in the position of judging matters that involve himself.
Brazilian criminal procedure rules extend judicial recusal standards to prosecutors precisely to prevent officials from acting in their own cause. The ADPF note requested that Gonet abstain from any role as law enforcer or external controller in related proceedings, that the procedure against the PF team be archived, and that the full facts of Compliance Zero be examined without selectivity based on rank.
Subsequent reporting has added a 2024 photograph of Gonet with Vorcaro at a London event and messages in which the banker referred to contacts involving the PGR. Opposition figures and some legal observers have since pressed for his removal from the case, while the Conselho Superior do MPF has scheduled review of the mentions.
The episode raises a straightforward institutional question: whether the head of the Public Ministry can credibly oversee an investigation that names him. Delegates who executed a judicial mandate should not face internal inquiry from an official cited in the same file. Full, even-handed inquiry into Banco Master’s alleged irregularities remains necessary; selective focus on the police rather than the connections they documented undermines public confidence in equal application of the law.
#CasoMaster #PauloGonet #ADPF #PoliciaFederal #BancoMaster #ComplianceZero #EstadoDeDireito
Sources: ADPF public note of September 5, 2026; contemporaneous reporting by CNN Brasil, G1, Estadão, Valor Econômico, and Metrópoles.