R$6 million from Delta. But... Where's the money?

Vassil Oliveira_Goiás 247 – Two seemingly unconnected cases that occurred in recent days contain curious facts that could open a new line of investigation in the Cachoeira case in Goiás, and involve the former mayor of Goiânia, Iris Rezende, Governor Marconi Perillo (PSDB), state secretaries Thiago Peixoto (Education, PSD) and Daniel Goulart (Institutional Articulation of the Government, PSDB), the mayor of Aparecida de Goiânia, Maguito Vilela (PMDB), and, loosely, the current mayor of the capital, Paulo Garcia (PT).

To them.

On Sunday, May 27th, the Secretary of Institutional Coordination of the Government of Goiás, Daniel Goulart, presented a complaint on the Paulo Beringhs Program that, if confirmed, would directly affect Iris Rezende.

According to him, the owner of the construction company Delta, Fernando Cavendish, and the company's director for the Central-West region, Cláudio Abreu, visited then-mayor Iris Rezende in the second half of May 2009 with two bags. "What would be in them?" he himself asked, to make it clear that he was talking about cash.

According to the secretary's account, the meeting took place at the City Hall, the seat of the mayor's office. The proof of the accusation? "Thiago (Peixoto) said this, and he didn't ask for confidentiality," he stated. Thiago Peixoto is a licensed federal deputy, state secretary of Education, and is in the PSD party, but was elected by the PMDB and, until his rapprochement with Governor Marconi Perillo, was seen as his possible opponent in 2014.

Daniel was trying, at the time, to show that neither Leonardo Vilela (a member of the PSDB party who confirmed conversations with Cachoeira, including to politically orchestrate his candidacy for mayor of the Goianian capital) nor Governor Marconi Perillo had anything to fear in the investigations of the Cachoeira case, but that the PMDB and Iris had a lot to explain. "Marconi is a victim of Cachoeira and Lula's political machine," he stated.

Thiago Peixoto, an eyewitness to the account, is silent about the facts. He hasn't even said how he ended up at the meeting to be an eyewitness. Unless...

The other fact is from this past weekend. According to a report in Veja magazine, data from COAF, the federal government agency that identifies suspicious money laundering transactions, shows that Delta Construções, considered Cachoeira's business arm, transferred R$ 6 million to a company whose owner worked for the city government during Iris's administration.

The magazine reports that GM Comércio de Pneus e Peças Ltda received money from Delta between November 2009 and May 2010, through bank deposits. The owner of the company was allegedly Alcino de Souza, appointed to a commissioned position in the municipality. Alcino told Veja that he received R$ 1,5 per month for lending his name to the company and withdrawing the money from the account.

And where was the money going? To Fábio Passaglia, former director of Purchases and Bidding for the city hall and president of the Institute for Urban Planning and Research of Aparecida (Ippua), which oversees public works in the administration of another member of the PMDB party, Maguito Vilela, in Aparecida.

This is where the story takes on a suspenseful tone.

Daniel Goulart's statement had a clear target: to suggest that Iris, or her administration, had ties to Cachoeira. The Veja report also points to a case that is difficult for the former mayor to explain. However, in suspense stories, not everything is as it seems.

In an interview with the newspaper O Popular this Sunday, Iris stated that Fábio was appointed Director of Purchasing in Goiânia in 2005 and remained in the position for less than a year, when he was allegedly dismissed following a complaint. Iris's account, according to the newspaper:

“He (Iris) recounts that, during the bidding process for the purchase of 50 trucks for urban cleaning, in April 2006, a businessman participating in the competition came to his office with information that Fábio and another aide, the former Secretary of Communication Luiz Antonio Ludovico, had asked him for money. 'And did you give it?' I asked him (Fábio),” Iris recounts. He said 'no'. The corruption crime wasn't concluded, so I had no reason to take this accusation to the authorities. But I fired both of them within minutes.”

Iris said something else. She stated that Fábio Passaglia was recommended by Thiago Peixoto, her former ally. And she guaranteed that she doesn't know Alcido de Souza. Thiago, through his press office, also spoke, making the story more curious. He confirmed that he is a friend of Fábio and stated that Fábio was recommended by Iris's daughter, Ana Paula.

There's more. The report in O Popular informs that Fábio is a businessman and has participated in public tenders for the current administration of Mayor Paulo Garcia (PT), who took office after Iris resigned in early 2010 to run for governor and is running for re-election. Fábio's name appears in minutes from February 2011, as a representative of Terra Pneus e Lubrificantes Ltda, interested in leasing machinery to the city hall.

In short: Thiago and Iris, considered until 2009 to be a close political father and son, broke off relations because Thiago became close to Marconi, who is accused in the Cachoeira case and who, as such, was defended on a TV program by Daniel Goulart, who also wanted to implicate Iris, using Thiago's name, which had already been mentioned in recordings from the Cachoeira case, as 'testimonial evidence'. However, instead of acknowledging everything, Thiago remained silent in one case and, in the other, passed the buck to Iris, bringing into the story his daughter, Ana Paula, who grew up as a friend of Thiago, and Daniel Vilela, the first son of an old ally of his father, Flávio Peixoto, who now works for the PSDB in Tocantins, and the second, a state deputy for the PMDB and son of Maguito, who has already admitted that he even played soccer with Cachoeira and, believe it or not, hired Fábio, Thiago's friend who connects everyone.

The question is: who received the money collected by Fábio Passaglia? Iris? Thiago? Nobody?

Finally: where are the R$ 6 million?

Isn't this a good story to be clarified in the Cachoeira Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry in Brasília?