Brazilian Federal Police carried out their most extensive operation yet to punish those responsible for a massive fraud carried out at retailer Americanas SA with arrest and search warrants issued in Rio de Janeiro.
While the police didn’t identify the two people targeted with detention, they were ex-chief executive officer Miguel Gutierrez and director Anna Saicali, according to people familiar with the case who aren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. The police said the two targets have fled the country and Interpol alerts were issued for their arrest.
Gutierrez has been living in Spain for nearly a year and local newspaper O Globo reported that Saicali recently traveled to Portugal.
Gustavo Minas/Bloomberg
Some 15 search and seizure orders were also carried out early Thursday seeking to clarify the role of former employees in the crime, according to
A Federal Court ordered the seizure of assets of the former directors worth more than 500 million reais.
The case, which rocked the local business and financial industries in early 2023, is one of Brazil’s biggest corporate scandals ever with a multi-year fraud that was calculated at some 25.3 billion reais ($4.6 billion).
Until now, investigations by the police, public prosecutor’s office and securities regulator had failed to produce any concrete actions to penalize those responsible. A congressional investigation last year ended with no concrete takeaways beyond agreeing that a fraud had been committed.
The case took on even more attention since the largest shareholders of Americanas are also some of Brazil’s wealthiest businessmen. Billionaires Jorge Paulo Lemann, Carlos Sicupira and Marcel Telles have owned the business since the early 1980s and have agreed to
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