Fraudulent guarantor for federal contracts to face charges in Brazil’s accounts court

Auditors from Brazil’s federal accounts court (TCU) have called on the tribunal to charge FIB Bank, which issued USD 163 million in false guarantees for public contractors and debtors — including a shady deal between the Health Ministry and Precisa Medicamentos to purchase Indian-made Covid vaccine Covaxin.

In a probe kicked off after an investigation from The Brazilian Report into the so-called “bank” — the Central Bank has not authorized the company to operate as a financial institution — auditors concluded that the firm committed bad faith litigation against the court while trying to “prove” that it owns properties falsely evaluated at the whopping sum of BRL 7.5 billion (USD 1.38 billion). 

As The Brazilian Report did months ago, authorities were unable to find any evidence that FIB holds possession of two enormous plots of land in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. Their fictitious valuations are used to issue fraudulent guarantees to contractors and debtors of the federal government. 

Auditors found that in 2018 and 2020 the Health Ministry signed two contracts for the purchase of condoms with Precisa Medicamentos, which used fraudulent guarantees from...