Brazilian mid-sized bank at the center of regulatory probes into asset valuation and funding, whose stress spread to counterparties such as BRB.
Last 90 days
The Master case entered the deposition phase: Daniel Vorcaro testified to the Federal Police on August 28 under Operation Compliance Zero, which probes bribes to two former Central Bank staffers and covers BRB's attempted purchase of the bank, with losses estimated at up to R$ 47 billion to the FGC. His defense signals openness to a plea deal, twice rejected.
Updated November 07, 2026 · 27 verified articles
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The case's regulatory and judicial outcomes calibrate the risk premium of mid-sized banks, structured funding and exposed counterparties.
Explanatory mechanism, not a forecast or recommendation.The Federal District Attorney General asked the Supreme Court to transfer to BRB R$ 2.2 billion frozen in the name of Henrique Vorcaro, father of Daniel Vorcaro, former controller of Banco Master, according to CNN Brasil and Investidor10.
The Federal Police indicted Banco Master Daniel Vorcaro and former BRB president Paulo Henrique Costa for crimes including fraudulent management and criminal organization, in a probe into credit portfolios sold to BRB, according to Money Times and Times Brasil.
Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Banco Master, gives new testimony to the Federal Police on October 15 about the negotiated sale of the bank to BRB, according to CNN Brasil and Times Brasil. The testimony had been postponed twice because the defense lacked access to the case files.
Justice Flávio Dino of the Supreme Court ordered on September 24 that the Federal Police investigate possible irregularities in the conduct of the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Banco Master case. According to the coverage, the probe targets the conduct of the agency top officials and an alleged omission regarding operations linked to the bank. The decision comes a day after Amec and IBGC asked for clarifications about the CVM situation and defended the agency independence.
Justice Gilmar Mendes filed on September 22 a motion for the Supreme Court Second Panel to send to the full bench the dispute over compensation to the sugar and ethanol sector for price controls by the defunct Sugar and Alcohol Institute; the motion will be examined in a virtual session from September 25 to October 2. The goal is to standardize the requirement of individual expert proof of loss, set in a 2020 general repercussion ruling, across cases such as those of the Alcídia, Raízen and Jalles Machado mills. The impact is estimated at R$ 103.4 billion in the 2026 Budget Guidelines Law, according to Money Times, and up to R$ 145 billion, according to Gazeta do Povo. The move follows messages from Daniel Vorcaro, whose Banco Master bought Alcídia court-ordered payments, criticizing the justice stance against the payments.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes was drawn on September 21 as rapporteur at the Supreme Court of a writ filed by Curitiba city councilman Guilherme Kilter (Novo) seeking access to Senate entry records of Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Banco Master, of Viviane Barci de Moraes, the justice wife, of Fábio Luís Lula da Silva and of Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes. The request came after the Senate denied access under the Freedom of Information Law, and the case was originally filed in federal court in Paraná. According to CNN Brasil, Moraes may declare himself suspect or disqualified and ask Chief Justice Edson Fachin for a new draw.
A video released on September 20 by Lauro Jardim's column at O Globo shows Justice Alexandre de Moraes and his wife, Viviane Barci, disembarking on August 22, 2025 from a Prime Aviation aircraft, a company that had Daniel Vorcaro as a partner. The Barci de Moraes law firm, which provided services to Banco Master, said it hires air taxis from different companies on operational criteria, with no personal tie, and that Vorcaro was never on the flights. On March 31 Moraes had said in a statement he had never flown on a Vorcaro plane; the Federal Police identified at least eight flights between May and October 2025.
Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino ruled on September 20 that the federal government, coordinated by the Finance Ministry, must carry out within 90 days a technical assessment and reappraisal of the CVM's rules. The decision comes in the case in which he had already ordered an emergency plan for the regulator's enforcement, cites relaxations of 2021 and 2022 resolutions said to have created systemic permissiveness and a case forwarded in 2022 that anticipated the irregularities later found at Banco Master, plus Transparency International reports of complaints shelved without minimal inquiries.
Governor Celina Leão created, through the Federal District attorney general office, a commission to recover assets and estimate the damage caused to BRB by the Banco Master fraud, with a first meeting within five days and an initial 30 day term. In parallel, the district government confirmed confidential negotiations with foreign investors, including Arab groups, for capital injections into the bank.
Supreme Court president Edson Fachin removed from the docket on September 17 the September 23 session that would examine the request to investigate André Mendonça conduct as rapporteur of the Master case. The decision cites the direct link to the procedural question raised by Gilmar Mendes on September 15, whose judgment was interrupted by Flávio Dino request for review with a 4 to 3 score. The Federal Police scheduled the depositions of Daniel and Henrique Vorcaro for September 30.
At the September 15 extraordinary session, the STF plenary rejected by 4 votes to 3 the point of order raised by Gilmar Mendes to judge together the request to investigate Alexandre de Moraes and the request against André Mendonça: Edson Fachin, Mendonça, Luiz Fux and Cármen Lúcia voted to keep the cases separate, and Gilmar, Cristiano Zanin and Moraes for joint analysis; Flávio Dino asked for more time to review and the session was suspended without a vote on the merits of Petition 16,662. Dias Toffoli declared himself suspect and Nunes Marques impeded; Moraes accused Mendonça of having demanded that the Federal Police include his name in the Daniel Vorcaro plea deal, which Mendonça denied, and Cármen Lúcia said the court had caused civic unease. The Mendonça case stays scheduled for September 23.
The S&P/B3 Ibovespa VIX, which measures expected implied volatility for the next 30 days from Ibovespa options, closed September 14 at 30.15 points, up 5.24% on the day and 17.87% in September, the highest level since the index launch on March 19, 2024, above the previous record of 29.6 points on March 27, 2026; B3 and Exame attribute the jump to the STF crisis between Moraes and Mendonça, the hearing scheduled for September 15, US-Iran tensions and the wait for the Fed and Copom decisions.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Edson Fachin took over on the night of September 12 as rapporteur of petition 16,662, on the relationship between Alexandre de Moraes and Daniel Vorcaro, after André Mendonça returned the file citing the judiciary statute and the court's rules, and ordered petitions 15,041 (Banco Master) and 15,556 (INSS) sent to the presidency, which halts individual rulings in those cases; he gave the Federal Police 24 hours to report on the custody of the material from Vorcaro's phone, denied Moraes's request to merge the trials and kept the September 15 session on Moraes and the September 23 session on Mendonça, ahead of the first round. September 13 and 14 update: the Federal Police said it can send identical copies of Vorcaro's phone, Zanin and Gilmar Mendes ordered the transfer, Mendonça warned of risks to the investigations and Fachin referred to the Prosecutor-General Moraes's request to open the petition listing Vorcaro's payments.
The Federal District's Attorney General asked Supreme Court Justice André Mendonça to order the return to BRB of the R$ 12.2 billion paid to Banco Master, with tracing and freezing of flows originating at BRB and judicial deposit of the funds, plus access to Master's and the Reag fund's lifted bank and tax secrecy to identify the diverted funds; the petition, filed August 25 and made public September 11, invokes Federal Police reports on fraudulent portfolios intermediated by Tirreno and international asset-recovery conventions.
A Federal Police report released on September 11, after the Supreme Court ordered secrecy lifted, concludes that not a single credit in the portfolios Banco Master sold to BRB could be validated with real backing: BRB transferred R$ 12.2 billion to Master between December 2024 and May 2025, R$ 4.05 billion of it after Central Bank questioning, despite formal warnings and contrary technical opinions. The Federal Police point to 182,000 operations concentrated in just 12 standardised amounts and more than 290,000 of 358,000 clients repeated from earlier assignments; those under investigation deny wrongdoing. September 13 update: the Federal Police total about R$ 17 billion in fictitious operations, with 2,700 automatically generated powers of attorney, and R$ 146.5 million in bribes to BRB's former president; the bank says it is a victim and cites a forensic audit.
The Supreme Court released the Master case files on September 11 after Chief Justice Edson Fachin gave rapporteur André Mendonça 24 hours to lift secrecy, preserving only ongoing inquiries: among them, the Federal Police report on Daniel Vorcaro's phone and the January 2024 contract between Banco Master and the Barci de Moraes law firm, worth R$ 108 million net in 36 instalments of R$ 3 million (R$ 131.3 million gross), plus an unsigned Viking Participações draft. Mendonça denied fellow justices access to the full phone data, drawing criticism from Moraes and Zanin, and the full court holds an extraordinary session on September 15; DI futures closed flat as investors bought protection.
The Federal Police summoned Central Bank president Gabriel Galípolo, former president Roberto Campos Neto, BTG Pactual chairman André Esteves and BC supervision director Ailton de Aquino to testify as witnesses in the investigation into the supervision of Banco Master, Estadão revealed on September 9, with independent confirmation by Correio Braziliense. The four were named in the testimony of Paulo Sérgio Souza, former deputy director of banking supervision at the BC.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Edson Fachin decided on September 9 to remove Alexandre de Moraes as rapporteur of the fake news inquiry, keeping prior rulings valid, days after moving Moraes's request against André Mendonça into a separate proceeding and after 13 former justices' letter demanding a rigorous inquiry into the crisis tied to Daniel Vorcaro's messages.
The CVM board unanimously convicted 16 defendants on September 8 for overvaluing properties and creating artificial liquidity for Brazil Realty fund units: Daniel Vorcaro was fined R$ 20 million and Banco Master R$ 12.5 million, out of a R$ 201 million total, with appeal possible to the CRSFN.
Thirteen retired Supreme Court justices, from Néri da Silveira to Rosa Weber, sent a letter to Chief Justice Edson Fachin on September 7 asking for an urgent public session and an immediate, rigorous inquiry into the facts tied to the Banco Master founder's messages to Alexandre de Moraes, in what they call the most acute crisis in the Court's history.
The central bank ordered on September 3 the extrajudicial liquidation of Trustee DTVM and Banvox DTVM, brokerages linked to Banco Master through asset management services, for violating financial system rules, per Money Times, Bloomberg Línea and Correio Braziliense. With them, the central bank reaches 17 liquidations in 2026, the most in a year since 2002, per InfoMoney and Valor.
The Prosecutor General's Office asked Justice André Mendonça to void the Federal Police report that identified messages between Daniel Vorcaro and Alexandre de Moraes, arguing that an inquiry into a justice would require authorization from the Supreme Court's full bench, and backed shelving the deposition in which Vorcaro reported threats, for lack of evidence, per Agência Brasil and Exame.
The Prosecutor General's Office signed a plea agreement with João Carlos Mansur, founder and former owner of Reag Investimentos, and sent the material to the Supreme Court for ratification by Justice André Mendonça, per Money Times and InfoMoney. It is the first cooperation deal sealed in the Banco Master and Daniel Vorcaro investigation.
A Federal Police report with messages extracted from Daniel Vorcaro's phone shows the former Banco Master owner authorized credit cards with R$ 300,000 limits for Justice Alexandre de Moraes's two children, at the request of the justice's wife's law firm, per Gazeta do Povo and g1. The firm says the cards were never used.
September 5 update: the Federal District government filed suit at the Supreme Court to force the Union to guarantee the FGC loan to BRB, per Correio Braziliense, Valor, Estadão and Poder360. BRB has had overdue financial statements since March 2026, and the delay stalls the release of the R$ 6.6 billion loan from deposit-guarantee fund FGC, which requires access to the statements before disbursing, per CNN Brasil and Bloomberg Línea. Per CNN, the Fux ruling keeping the TJBA's R$ 394 million monthly inflows eases but does not solve the liquidity squeeze.
Daniel Vorcaro, former controller of Banco Master, testified to the Federal Police on August 28 by videoconference, in the probe into whether two former Central Bank staffers took bribes to act in the bank's favor during supervision. Per Agência Brasil, the deposition lasted about four hours and his defense signals willingness to discuss a plea deal.
The CVM set September 8 for the trial of the administrative case over alleged fraud with REIT shares involving Banco Master, its controller Daniel Vorcaro and other defendants.