Banco Master was a mid-sized Brazilian bank whose collapse became the biggest bank fraud in Brazilian history. Its business model was based on selling bank-deposit certificates with unusually high interest rates. In late 2025 the Central Bank ordered its liquidation; Brazil's deposit-insurance fund will shell out $7.5bn-10bn to reimburse savers, the largest such compensation in the country's history.
The bank was headed by Daniel Vorcaro. Fabiano Zettel, Vorcaro's brother-in-law, was the largest individual donor to Jair Bolsonaro's 2022 presidential campaign. Vorcaro was arrested in November 2025 as he tried to board a private jet to Dubai; the former president of Banco de Brasília was also detained after evidence emerged of $30m in bribes. The deposit-insurance fund will reimburse $11bn—about half its total assets. Vorcaro's "bank" was largely an influence-peddling vehicle, with parties featuring sex workers flown in from Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela. In May 2026 Intercept Brasil published messages from Vorcaro to Flávio Bolsonaro showing he had agreed to put $24m into a Bolsonaro biopic. When investigators opened Vorcaro's phone, they found the bank had signed a deal worth $24m over three years with a law firm run by Alexandre de Moraes's wife. Mr Vorcaro also had ties to Dias Toffoli, a Supreme Court justice: he had invested in a luxury resort owned by Mr Toffoli's brothers, in which Mr Toffoli holds a stake. Police found allegations of phone calls and meetings between Mr Toffoli and Mr Vorcaro, and messages discussing payments of 20m reais ($4m) to a firm co-owned by Mr Toffoli. When the Banco Master case was assigned to Mr Toffoli by lottery, he flew on a private jet with a bank lawyer around the same time. After mounting pressure, Mr Toffoli stepped aside from the case. The scandal highlighted the entanglement of businesspeople, politicians and court officials in Brazil.
intoxicated, adj.: When you feel sophisticated without being able to pronounce it.