Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, the son of Brazil's president, was the intended recipient of cash payments directed by a political lobbyist, police messages reveal.
The text exchanges were uncovered by Brazil's Federal Police on a mobile phone seized from lobbyist Roberta Luchsinger and published by Brazilian news website Metrópoles. The records show Luchsinger instructing her personal driver and a former municipal health official on cash withdrawals, car journeys, and electronic bank transfers.
Luchsinger was communicating with her driver, Ulisses Barbosa Viana Junior, and with Quesede Ayres Henrique, the former health secretary of Goiânia, the state capital of Goiás. The messages show detailed coordination over money withdrawals and deliveries in São Paulo during 2024.
On 29 November 2024, Luchsinger asked Viana Junior where the money was and stated that it had to be taken over to Fábio. Viana Junior answered that he was on his way to make the deposit, explaining that the cash was in the boot of a Volvo vehicle.
Luchsinger then directed her driver to adjust his route. She explained that she had a lunch engagement at Cidade Jardim, an upscale commercial district in São Paulo, and instructed him to take an Uber from there, leave the money with Fábio, and switch to another vehicle.
Earlier that year, on 25 July 2024, Luchsinger forwarded the figure 26,809 to her driver, stating that an additional payment had to be made to Fábio at TTW. Viana Junior later sent back a deposit receipt for 26,809 Brazilian reais made out to corporate travel agency TTW Group.
Text messages and travel bookings
The mobile phone records also document an urgent transfer request sent on 11 November 2024 to Henrique, the former health official in Goiânia. Luchsinger sent an audio message urging him to immediately transfer 100,000 Brazilian reais using Brazil's instant payment system, Pix, complaining that the man was demanding payment from her.
Shortly afterwards, Luchsinger sent a follow-up message asking whether the transfer had been made. She complained that the recipient was about to board an aircraft and was continuing to pressure her for the money.
Lulinha subsequently boarded an international flight departing from São Paulo's Guarulhos International Airport bound for Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes, an influential lobbyist known in Brazilian political circles as Careca do INSS, was travelling on the same flight.
Defence response to leaked messages
Lawyer Marco Aurélio de Carvalho, who leads the legal defence team for Lulinha, pushed back against the published messages. Carvalho said it was not possible at present to confirm whether the text messages were genuine or even whether they existed at all.
The lawyer asserted that the purported messages do not appear in the official case files of the inquiries currently proceeding before Brazil's Federal Supreme Court. He added that if the transcripts are genuine, they represent the product of illegal and clandestine leaks designed to target his client.
Carvalho maintained that Fábio Luís Lula da Silva has never received any form of unlawful financial resources. The attorney also questioned the identity of the person named in the conversations, pointing out that investigators could not establish whether the Fábio mentioned was indeed the president's son, because Luchsinger typically identified him by name whenever she spoke about him.
News organisation CNN reported that it sought comment from legal representatives for Luchsinger, Viana Junior, and Henrique, but received no response from any of their defence teams prior to publication.
Federal Supreme Court inquiries
The leaked communications emerge as the Federal Police investigate Lulinha in three separate criminal inquiries. Investigators are examining allegations involving influence peddling and corruption, probing whether private corporate entities paid money to secure favourable treatment and access within Brazil's federal government.
The Federal Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in Brazil, authorised the three formal investigations in late July. Justice André Mendonça serves as the rapporteur overseeing two of the probes, while Justice Flávio Dino oversees the third. The president's son has consistently denied committing any irregularities in his business activities.
Operation Sem Desconto investigation
Federal authorities began looking into Lulinha after uncovering his relationship with Luchsinger. The businesswoman was first targeted by federal police officers in December of last year under Operation Sem Desconto, a sweeping inquiry into fraudulent benefit schemes at the National Social Security Institute, known as the INSS.
The INSS manages pensions, disability coverage, and social assistance payments across Brazil. Federal Police reports from that investigation describe Luchsinger as a suspected financial and political operator working on behalf of Antunes within the fraud network, which led to the seizure of her mobile phone.
Federal agents interrogated Luchsinger in May in an effort to clarify her links to both Antunes and the president's son. During that interrogation, she acknowledged having introduced Lulinha to the lobbyist. Her defence team stated that the subsequent trip to Portugal was undertaken solely to pursue legitimate business opportunities.
