Brazil’s Supreme Court Faces Its Deepest Crisis in Years
Two justices of Brazil’s Supreme Court are personally entangled in the country’s largest banking fraud in a generation, and the court’s response has been to investigate the people who exposed it. On Tuesday, Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized raids against four federal tax employees accused of illegally accessing financial records of justices and their families — using the fake news inquiry, a controversial instrument he created in 2019 to investigate alleged anti-democratic threats linked to the Bolsonaro movement.
The problem, as columnist Alvaro Gribel argues in O Estado de S. Paulo, is not the leak — it is what the leak revealed. In December, reporters uncovered that the law firm of Moraes’s wife held a contract with Banco Master worth R$129 million ($22.6 million), paying R$3.6 million monthly over three years. Bank owner Daniel Vorcaro, now under house arrest, described the payments in seized messages as an absolute priority. Moraes has not addressed the contract.
The Toffoli connection
The second justice caught in the web is Dias Toffoli, who took over the Master investigation in December and promptly sealed the evidence and restricted police access. Analysis of Vorcaro’s phone revealed messages directing R$35 million ($6.1 million) through investment funds to the Tayayá luxury resort in Paraná, where Toffoli‘s family held a stake through a company called Maridt. Toffoli acknowledged receiving dividends but denied personal payments from Vorcaro. On February 12, under intense pressure, he stepped down. The case was reassigned by lottery to Justice André Mendonça.
Banco Master was liquidated on November 18, 2025, the same day police arrested Vorcaro at Guarulhos airport as he attempted to fly to Dubai. The alleged fraud involved R$12 billion ($2.1 billion) in fake credit instruments, and seven linked institutions have since been liquidated. Forensics on Vorcaro’s phone produced what Brazilian media compare to the Odebrecht revelations: a contact list spanning the political spectrum. Senate president Davi Alcolumbre, former House speaker Arthur Lira, current speaker Hugo Motta, and dozens of lawmakers are mentioned. A congressional inquiry is preparing to summon Moraes’s wife and Toffoli’s brothers. What makes the crisis singular is structural: under Brazilian law, only the Supreme Court can authorize investigations into its own members. The justices under suspicion sit on the same bench that decides whether to pursue the case. Moraes’s anti-coup credentials, Gribel concludes, do not exempt the court from scrutiny. This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Brazil politics and Latin American financial news.
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