Daniel Vorcaro headed Banco Master, the Brazilian bank whose collapse became the country's largest-ever bank fraud. He was arrested in November 2025 trying to board a private jet to Dubai. The deposit-insurance fund is reimbursing investors $11bn, roughly half its total assets. Mr Vorcaro ran what was effectively an influence-peddling scheme rather than a bank, cultivating Supreme Court justices, politicians and central-bank officials. He hosted parties with up to 300 sex workers flown in from Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela on private jets, telling his then girlfriend it was "business". His brother-in-law Fabiano Zettel was the largest individual donor to Jair Bolsonaro's 2022 campaign. Intercept Brasil leaked messages in May 2026 showing Mr Vorcaro had agreed to put $24m into "Dark Horse", a Bolsonaro biopic—threatening the presidential bid of Flávio Bolsonaro.
"I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it (your paper) presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage."