In an operation carried out by the Public Prosecutor's Office of São Paulo last Tuesday (12), the founder of the pharmacy chain Ultrafarma, Sidney Oliveira, and Mário Otávio Gomes, statutory director of Fast Shop, were arrested. Along with them, the police found about R$ 1.8 million in cash and R$ 10 million in cryptocurrencies, according to information from the newspaper O Globo.
The executives and their respective companies are being investigated for participating in a bribery scheme to expedite and guarantee the release of ICMS (Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services) credits. According to the prosecution, the corruption scheme, which aimed at tax evasion, would have moved more than R$ 1 billion in bribes.
During "Operation Icarus," luxury watches and gemstones whose value has not yet been determined were also seized. Four other people involved in a tax corruption scheme were arrested.
According to the report, the largest seizure was at the home of Celso Éder Gonzaga de Araújo, suspected of being responsible for the money laundering of the scheme. At the residence, in Alphaville, Greater São Paulo, R$ 1.2 million, US$ 10.7 thousand, and € 1,590 in cash were found, about R$ 200 thousand in cryptocurrencies, luxury watches, and two packages with emeralds.
Looking only at digital currencies, tax auditor Marcelo de Almeida Gouveia, arrested in the operation, held R$ 2 million in these assets. Additionally, he had R$ 330 thousand, US$ 10 thousand, and € 600 in cash. Artur Gomes da Silva Neto, supervisor of the Tax Inspection Directorate (Difis) of the State Department of Finance of São Paulo (Sefaz-SP), identified as the main operator of the scheme, was also arrested.
The operation also seized R$ 73 thousand and US$ 13 thousand from Maria Hermínia de Jesus Santa Clara, an accountant identified as the "assistant" of the scheme. In total, there were 19 search and temporary arrest warrants.
Tax fraud scheme
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the scheme used the company Smart Tax, which in 2021 began handling large amounts, receiving millions of reais solely from the retail chain Fast Shop. A year later, the amounts exceeded R$ 60 million, and after the lifting of the tax secrecy, the Federal Revenue stated that the company would have received, in gross amounts, more than R$ 1 billion from Fast Shop.
Smart Tax was registered in the name of Artur Gomes da Silva Neto's mother, and its headquarters was located at the auditor's house in Ribeirão Pires. Transactions with the retailer were recorded through the issuance of invoices and the collection of ICMS, which made everything seem legal.
The scheme involved all stages of the ICMS credit reimbursement process, from collecting invoices and other mandatory documents, to drafting and submitting the request to the Department of Finance (Sefaz), up to monitoring and final approval. Besides Fast Shop, it was later discovered that Ultrafarma also used the scheme.
Investigations revealed that, in some cases, the auditor was able to release credits far above what the company had actually calculated, in addition to obtaining approval more quickly than would be possible through normal procedures.