A Federal Police investigation report names Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, a son of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as an indirect beneficiary of a lobbyist's activity. The passage was reported first by the magazine Veja on 20 August; Folha de S.Paulo said the same day that it had confirmed the document's content.
According to the PF document as reproduced by Veja, the communications indicate that the lobbyist and businesswoman Roberta Luchsinger cited Fábio Luís as a reference for decisions in the deals under discussion, and he is named as the indirect beneficiary of arrangements third parties made in his name. Investigators wrote of a permanent and coordinated nucleus made up of Luchsinger, Fábio Luís and Fernando Bittar, directed at putting private interests to bodies and officials of the federal administration. Folha adds that the three would have belonged to the same WhatsApp group.
One strand concerns an attempt to sell cannabidiol medicines to the federal government. Poder360, citing documents obtained by O Globo, reports that Luchsinger sent Marco Aurélio Santana Ribeiro — known as Marcola, and a former chief of staff to Lula — a draft contract for 1.2 million bottles of cannabidiol products to the Health Ministry, worth 626 million reais. Poder360 reports that the negotiation was arranged without a tender and covered 36 different types of the medicine, and that the two discussed in recordings the possibility of contracting under a tender waiver. The PF obtained the document from the phones of Luchsinger and of Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes, who is under investigation over the diversion of INSS pension and benefit payments. The Health Ministry said cannabidiol is not listed as a medicine in the public health system, so no purchase was possible, and that there was neither a contract nor a discussion.
Folha reports that the investigation indicates Marcola brokered a meeting between Luchsinger and Swedenberger Barbosa, then executive secretary at the Health Ministry and now working in Lula's office, and that the draft contract went to Marcola after that meeting. Marcola had already told reporters he did not pass the contract on. The approaches to the Health Ministry did not prosper. Folha also reports that between February and November 2024 Luchsinger covered 217,098 reais of Marcola's card bills, invoices and car instalments.
Both the president's son and Marcola deny wrongdoing. Marco Aurélio de Carvalho, the lawyer acting for Fábio Luís, called the conduct of the parts of the PF that leak information a shambles. In a separate statement, Marcola's defence said it had not yet had access to the full case file, that the selective leaking of excerpts rather than the whole was intended to distort the facts and interfere in the electoral process, that he had never forwarded any document concerning purchases or tenders at the Health Ministry or the health regulator Anvisa, and that the sums mentioned were a personal loan repaid in full.
CNN Brasil reports that the PF should only summon Fábio Luís once it has finished analysing everything taken from Luchsinger's phone, and that the starting point of its rough timetable is the large volume of messages exchanged from 2023 onwards. Judicial measures before any summons are not ruled out. Gazeta do Povo reports that three investigations sit at the Supreme Federal Court: two grew out of material from the INSS inquiry and are with Justice André Mendonça, while the third was distributed by lot after the PF held that its facts stood on their own.
Why it is on the board
Second on Folha's most-read list when we collected, with another piece from the same investigation at 21st on the same list.
확인: Folha de S.Paulo · Poder360 · CNN Brasil · Gazeta do Povo