Lourenço Melo
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília – The Caixa Econômica Federal (the state-run Mortgage and Savings Bank) reports that it has begun investigating the case of the violation of bank secrecy laws resulting in the publication by a newsmagazine of a customer's bank account balance sheet.

Information on the bank account of Francenildo dos Santos Costa, a gardener-caretaker (caseiro) at a house rented by former aides to the former mayor of the city of Ribeirão Preto, state of São Paulo, Antonio Palocci (who is presently minister of Finance) appeared in "Epoca," a weekly newsmagazine published by the Globo group.

Francenildo (he is known by his first name) got into the news last week when he declared that minister Antonio Palocci had visited the house where he worked "ten or twenty times." That contradicts Palocci who swears he never visited the house. The house in question, in an upper class neighborhood in Brasilia, was supposedly a center for the distribution of slush fund money and call girl activities. Besides saying that he saw Palocci at the house, Francenildo declared that he saw money being divided up by former aides to Palocci.

A balance sheet of Francenildo's bank account was printed out at around 9:00 pm in the evening of March 16, exactly at the moment he was at the Federal Police headquarters in Brasilia being enrolled in the Witness Protection Program. According to Francenildo's lawyer, he gave his ATM bank card to the police but did not give them his password or secret code. That points to an inside job at the Caixa Economico, says the lawyer, who has filed a formal request for an investigation of the bank.

Meanwhile, a note from the Ministry of Finance reaffirms what minister Palocci has said before: that he never went to the house and that he does not drive in Brasilia because he uses a chauffered car.(Francenildo says Palocci always arrived at the house driving his own car).

Translation: Allen Bennett