Coaf should go to Justice or Finance, says Flávio Dino

The future Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, said that the Coaf (Council for the Control of Financial Activities) should return to the Ministry of Justice or the Ministry of Finance for better management. Currently, the body is under the responsibility of the Central Bank.

“Today Coaf is under the authority of the Central Bank, it is a strange location, I would say, because today the Central Bank has the so-called independence. It is not exactly the responsibility of the monetary authority, which already has so many duties, to take care of this more”, he said. Dino, in an interview with Globonews.

“Apparently there was an idea of ​​emptying, of cornering this very important body. We need to bring it to the right place to ensure effectiveness not only in relation to violent crimes, but also the so-called white collar crimes, corruption”, he added.

Before the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), Coaf was linked to the Ministry of Finance. At the beginning of the current government, the body was transferred to the Ministry of Justice, in response to a request by Sergio Moro. The arrangement was part of the former Operation Lava Jato judge’s strategy to expand the fight against corruption.

Congress reacted. In 2019, the mixed commission that analyzed the provisional administrative reform measure returned the advice to the Ministry of Economy, in defeat for Moro.

Under pressure from parliamentarians, including those from the allied base, the Planalto Palace did not strive to maintain the configuration desired by the then head of Justice.

Corruption is the most frequent topic in communications between COAF and other authorities. In 2018, the body was responsible for preparing a report indicating atypical financial transactions by Fabrício José Carlos de Queiroz, former advisor to today’s senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PSL-RJ) – the president’s son (he denies the irregularities mentioned).

In May 2021, Bolsonaro cut the amount that would be allocated by Coaf to the modernization of its main instrument for identifying crimes such as corruption and money laundering.

The Board had planned to use almost R$ 7 million this year to update Siscoaf (Financial Activities Control System). The platform is used to receive suspicious information from the financial system, analyze data and produce intelligence reports for bodies such as the Federal Police, Federal Revenue Service and Public Ministry.

During the interview, Dino also said that a norm that regulates the rules to consider a citizen as over-indebted and defines a minimum existential value that cannot be compromised with debts should be revised.

According to the decree, over-indebtedness is the situation in which the consumer is unable to pay his debts without compromising the existential minimum.

By subtracting the total debts from the income received monthly, the citizen must have at least R$ 303 left to live on. Otherwise, he is considered over-indebted.

“We are going to propose to President Lula the revision of this decree of the current President of the Republic that placed the existential minimum at a very low, even incongruous level. Because it establishes that the minimum income policy is R$ 600, as and, another public policy says which is BRL 303? There needs to be more internal coherence in the legal system and make these agreements more effective”, he said.