Accounting and tax fraud: how the PCC came to command bus companies in SP

A sequence of “accounting, corporate and tax tricks”. This is how Federal Revenue superintendent Márcia Cecília Meng defined the maneuvers of the First Capital Command (PCC) to participate in public tenders and become in charge of bus companies that operate lines in the municipal network of the largest city in the country.

This is the case of Transwolff and Upbus, targets of Operation End of the Line, launched today (9).

In a press conference held this Tuesday afternoon, Márcia stated: “we have a robust set of evidence that those involved in this operation acquired companies or paid in capital in companies with the purpose of becoming owners or creating companies to, in the end, , to make what was illicit appear to be making lawful.”

According to her, the money from crime was injected into companies so that they would acquire sufficient resources and size to compete in bids without arousing suspicion.

“These companies end up achieving financial strength, which makes it appear to public bodies that they are companies that are capable of carrying out the provision of public services, and compete unequally with other companies that are not able to ingest this money, which is not legal” , he said.

Between 2020 and 2022, the companies investigated in Operation Fim da Linha moved around R$723 million and had R$148 million in declared assets, but it was common, according to the IRS, for them to hide values. For example, there is a property valued at R$10 million that had been declared with a value of R$800 thousand.

Furthermore, the Revenue identified that there was a fraudulent offset of taxes owed by these companies that were carried out to issue the Debt Clearance Certificate, the presentation of which is necessary to participate in public tenders.

Investigations showed that the group did not use oranges, but accounting professionals and professional capital hiders. According to the superintendent of the Federal Revenue, these specialists “created an intricate set of companies and people with the purpose of disguising properties”

The operation

Operation End of the Line, launched today (9) by the Public Ministry of São Paulo (MPSP), against two bus companies that operate municipal transport lines in São Paulo, served four preventive arrest warrants and 52 search and seizure warrants in the capital São Paulo and in other cities in the metropolitan region and in the interior.

Among those arrested are the owner of Transwolff (TW) Luiz Carlos Efigênio Pacheco, known as “Pandora”, and Robson Flares Lopes Pontes, director of the company.

According to the MPSP investigation, the companies Upbus and TW, which transport more than 700,000 passengers daily in the capital of São Paulo, are linked to the criminal faction Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and used to launder money obtained from various crimes, such as trafficking. of drugs and robberies.

In Tuesday's action, more than 800 ammunition, 161 thousand reais in cash, 3,290 dollars, two gold bars, jewelry, watches and various documents were seized.