USP student suspected of scam says she tried to recover money in lottery and lost everything

USP medical student, Alicia Muller, who is suspected of having embezzled almost R$ 1 million from her class’s graduation commission, told in an interview with CNN who lost all the party money on lottery bets.

According to the version that Alicia told the graduation committee at the beginning of this year, after having withdrawn the BRL 927,000 that would be used to pay for the graduation parties, supposedly she would have invested around BRL 800,000 in an investor, which would have turned out to be a scam.

THE CNN , she said, this Tuesday (17th) via WhatsApp, that, after an investment “which did not work out”, she tried to recover her graduation money through Lotofácil bets – a type of lottery run by Caixa Econômica Federal. She did not detail how much money she invested in these bets.

Alicia said that despite winning a few games, she never managed to match all 15 numbers that entitle her to the main prize.

That is, I was never able to get the money back for graduation. So for me it wasn’t enough and I kept betting. In that, I lost everything.

Alicia Muller on CNN

In addition to being investigated for the graduation money, Alicia is also the target of an investigation by the Specialized Police in Criminal Investigations (Deic) of São Bernardo do Campo for embezzlement and money laundering.

After asking for a series of high value games, she would have lost R$ 192,000 to a lottery for not paying the bets she made.

Deic delegate from São Bernardo, Katia Regina Cristófaro Martins, revealed to the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo that the student won the lottery five times, according to information from the Financial Activities Control Council (Coaf), which monitors financial transactions .

According to the Civil Police, Alicia has already won BRL 326,000 in different Lotofácil prizes, but she denies it.

“I’ve just done the math with my declarations of capital increase from Caixa and the value is not even half of that. Some information is wrong and we will find out,” the accused told the CNN.

Alicia declined to comment on the fact that she received installments of BRL 600 from the Emergency Aid. The Transparency Portal of the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) shows that it received five installments between June and November 2020.

“Ended my life”

The suspect of an almost millionaire embezzlement has avoided talking to the press because, according to her, she still does not have a defense lawyer for the case.

“I haven’t signed a lawyer yet because my family doesn’t have money,” said Alicia.

Alicia stated that she and her family have been receiving threats since the story reverberated in the press and social networks: “This is giving me the greatest fear and it has ended my life.”