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Conafer President Surrenders to Federal Police and Is Taken Into Custody

His surrender triggers enforcement of a preventive arrest order and moves a long probe that the PF has sent to the Supreme Court closer to criminal prosecution.

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Overview

  • Carlos Roberto Ferreira Lopes, president of Conafer, presented himself to the Polícia Federal and was taken into custody to comply with a preventive arrest warrant on Thursday.
  • The Polícia Federal has formally indicted Lopes and 47 others on charges that include criminal organization, aggravated money laundering, and aggravated active corruption.
  • PF investigators say Conafer alone diverted about R$708 million from INSS beneficiaries and that the wider scheme of unauthorized associative discounts may total roughly R$6.0–6.3 billion.
  • Evidence in the PF report forwarded to the Supreme Federal Court includes spreadsheets of alleged bribe payments and matching bank transfers that prosecutors say link payments to the scheme.
  • The case began as a 2023 administrative probe by the CGU, became a criminal inquiry by the PF in 2024 under Operação Sem Desconto, and now faces possible trials and further political fallout as former INSS officials and lobbyists are implicated.