PF reached Lira’s advisor for couple with cash – 06/02/2023 – Power

The Federal Police arrived at the closest advisor to Arthur Lira (PP-AL) after following the money moved by Megalic, a company suspected of diverting funds from robotics kit contracts signed during the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

In the investigation, initiated from a report by the Sheet Published in April last year, the PF claims to have discovered that a couple from Brasília operated the diversions through shell companies, which acted as receivers of amounts transferred by Megalic.

The couple was arrested this Thursday (1st) in an operation that also carried out searches against Luciano Cavalcante, Lira’s assistant.

Based on Megalic’s transactions, the PF began to monitor the couple from Brasília and discovered an intense movement of cash withdrawals in bank branches and subsequent deliveries. The suspicion of the investigators is that the values ​​have public agents as a destination.

Between November 2022 and January 2023, the police accompanied and filmed at least a dozen trips by the couple to bank branches and cash deliveries in Brasília, nearby cities and in Maceió (AL).

In one of these secret monitoring sessions in the capital of Alagoas, in January 2023, the PF spotted the vehicle used by the couple to go to bank branches and then used to travel to possible places to deliver money.

In this January episode, the PF mapped BRL 115,000 in withdrawals made by the couple and at least one alleged delivery of values ​​in a hotel.

When investigating the vehicle, the PF discovered that the car was formally in the name of a person, but was used and was at the residence of Luciano Cavalcante (Lira’s direct assistant) and his wife, Glaucia.

* In the image below, Lira and her advisor Luciano Cavalcante at an event in Alagoas

In this January episode caught by the PF, the pair of operators from Brasilia was spotted going to Lira’s advisor’s house. Glaucia was filmed driving the vehicle with the two while traveling in Maceió.

Lawyer André Callegari, who defends Luciano Cavalcante, said he is analyzing the facts. He claims, however, that “the simple images mentioned do not demonstrate any illicit activity by the investigated person” and that Cavalcante has no connection with Megalic.

Megalic, the company that supplied the kits, operated in a small house in the Jatiuca neighborhood, in Maceió, with a capital of R$ 1 million. The company is just an intermediary, although it has closed millionaire contracts, at least R$ 24 million. It does not produce the robotics kits.

Megalic is in the name of Roberta Lins Costa Melo and Edmundo Catunda, father of Maceió councilor João Catunda (PSD). The closeness of the councilor and his father to Lira is public. In addition to the company and Edmundo Catundo, the PF targeted other allies of Lira in Alagoas.

The PF is investigating possible fraud that may have caused a loss of BRL 8.1 million to public coffers with robotics kits.

After mapping suspicious transactions between Megalic and companies owned by people linked to Lira, the PF requested searches and arrests in March of this year. This Thursday, Operation Hefesto carried out 26 search warrants and two temporary arrest warrants.

According to the PF note, the investigation identified “that financial transactions were carried out by the partners of the supplier company and by others investigated for individuals and legal entities without economic capacity and without relevance to the field of activity of supplying robotics equipment , which may indicate the concealment and dissimulation of assets, rights and values ​​arising from illicit activities”.

According to the PF, the crimes would have been committed between 2019 and 2022 in contracts with 43 municipalities in Alagoas.

As shown to Sheet at the time, the kits were contracted with resources, in large part, from the billionaire budget rapporteur’s amendments —at that moment, during the Bolsonaro government, Lira was responsible for controlling the distribution of part of this type of money in Brasília.

The TCU had already pointed out fraud in the processes for purchasing robotics kits in the Bolsonaro government and suspended the contracts.

The technical area of ​​the court identified, in total, 253 commitments in a total amount of R$ 189 million for the purchase of robotics kits. Most of it is related to rapporteur amendments appeals, and not all of it was actually paid.