Former Flávio Bolsonaro’s lawyer and investigated in the “cracked” case, Luis Gustavo Botto Maia got a lightning promotion from Rio de Janeiro to a position in Brasília with just eight months of work at Caixa.
He passed the competition for banking technician in 2014 and started working at Caixa’s unit in Praça Jauru, in Jacarepaguá, Rio de Janeiro, in April 2021.
In November of the same year, eight months after starting at the bank, Botto Maia was transferred to the Executive Board of Marketing and Institutional Relations, in Brasília, as an eventual replacement for an executive advisor, which increased his salary from R$3,000 to R$3,000. $14 thousand.
In Caixa’s internal systems, Botto Maia still appears to be fully booked at his original branch, despite not working there since last year.
He denies the interference of Flávio, now a senator for the PL, in his move to Brasília. “An opportunity arose and I fit the profile”, he justified.
Pedro Guimarães’ defense also denies that the former president made any move to bring Flávio’s former lawyer to Brasília.
Botto Maia was investigated by the MP-RJ (Rio de Janeiro Public Ministry) in the case of the “cracks”. He was even the target of search and seizure in Operação Anjo, in June 2020, when he worked in the office of state deputy Renato Zaca (PRTB), a Bolsonaro supporter.
According to the MP, Botto Maia, who advocated for Flávio for a period during the “crack” case, would have obstructed the investigation and destroyed evidence. The MP claims that he retroactively signed point records from 2017 with the aim of hindering the investigation of the facts.
“Botto Maia exceeded all the limits of the practice of law and began to act in a criminal way, in complicity with Alerj officials (Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro), to obstruct the performance of Justice by tampering with evidence relevant to the investigation of the criminal organization,” the complaint reads.
He came to respond to an administrative process at the OAB (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil) for this reason, but the case was shelved.
In addition to tampering with evidence, the MP pointed out that Botto Maia helped organize the escape of Fabrício Queiroz, pivot of the scandal, in 2019. Bolsonaro, in Atiabaia (SP).
In conversations gathered by the investigators, Botto Maia is cited as responsible for seeking and passing on information to Queiroz’s wife, Márcia Aguiar, and for establishing contact with militiaman and former PM Adriano da Nóbrega, who died in Bahia in February 2020.
Guimarães, who ran the bank until last week, is close to the presidential family and was seen as one of the closest assistants to Jair Bolsonaro (PL), being the record holder for participation in the president’s lives. There have been 28 broadcasts since the beginning of the current management. The last was the week before his resignation.
After the allegations of sexual and moral harassment, Guimarães was replaced by the former special advisor to the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, Daniella Marques. The new head of Caixa promised to hire an external consultancy to investigate cases of harassment.
This will not be the only investigation into the matter, the MPF (Federal Public Ministry), the MPT (Public Ministry of Labor) and the TCU (Union Court of Auditors) have also initiated procedures to investigate what was happening in the bank under Guimarães.
Flávio said that he had no influence on Botto Maia coming to Brasília. “Gustavo Botto Maia made a public contest for Caixa and passed. In addition to being public, if he is in a position of trust, it is because he probably meets the necessary requirements”, he said.
Caixa, in turn, said via advisory that “the rites of employee movement follow the internal rules and obey the bank’s governance”.
“Pedro Guimarães does not know Mr. Luis Gustavo Botto Maia and has never received any request from Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in his favor,” said the lawyer for the former president of Caixa, criminalist José Luis Oliveira Lima.
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