A partial report from the São Paulo Civil Police points out that a football player agency, accused of having a supposed link with the criminal organization PCC (Primeiro Comando da Capital), received over R$ 1 million from payments made by Corinthians. The formal justification for the transfers was the intermediation of the contract between the football club and the online sports betting house VaideBet. In total, R$ 1,074,150 arrived at the UJ Football Talent Intermediation company's bank account. The company was targeted by the plea bargain of real estate agent Antônio Vinícius Lopes Gritzbach, who was murdered in November at São Paulo International Airport, in Guarulhos. According to the plea bargain, UJ Football was involved in money laundering in the acquisition of elite Brazilian football players. The money from Corinthians is believed to have reached the company through payments made to the company Rede Social Media Design, which belongs to Alex Fernando André, also known as Alex Cassundé, who was part of the communication team of the current Corinthians president, Augusto Melo, during his electoral campaign. The link between the Corinthians payments and UJ Football was first reported by newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo and confirmed by Folha. The case began to be investigated by the Civil Police based on information published by the UOL blog. Three intermediary companies were used until the money reached UJ Football. According to the Civil Police, these firms were used by shell companies. Rede Social Media Design received two payments of R$ 700,000, totaling R$ 1.4 million, in March last year. A few days later, R$ 1,042,000 was transferred to Neoway Soluções Integradas em Serviços. This company had Edna Oliveira dos Santos as a partner, who receives government aid and lives in a precarious house in Peruíbe, on the São Paulo coast, and claimed to be unaware that she was listed as the owner of the company. In turn, Neoway transferred R$ 1 million to Wave Intermediações e Tecnologia. Finally, Wave transferred R$ 874,000 to UJ Football, and another R$ 200,000 arrived through another intermediary company, Victory Trading Intermediação de Negócios, Cobrança e Tecnologia. All these financial transactions occurred within a 10-day period. The investigation, led by delegate Tiago Fernando Correia, from the DPPC (Department of Police Protection to Citizenship), found that some of these shell companies had never made money transfers to each other, and after that, they never made any transactions again. With the information that Edna's name was used as a shell company in Neoway, the delegate called Alex Cassundé to testify. He stated that his name was included in the contract between VaideBet and Corinthians through intermediation, but the explanation did not convince the investigators and led them to continue tracing the money until it reached UJ Football. According to the report, the Corinthians' coffers were the target of a criminal association's theft. There is also suspicion of money laundering, as there are indications of an attempt to disguise the origin of the money that reached UJ Football. The Corinthians' defense stated that Alex Cassundé 'has no knowledge of the sequence of payments' after his transfers to Neoway, that he is unaware of the other companies involved and has no knowledge of the payments made to UJ Football. The Corinthians published an official statement on their website stating that 'there is no demonstration of authorship related to the facts mentioned' and that 'the club's president reaffirms his total support for the ongoing investigations, as well as all initiatives aimed at clarifying any involvement of organized crime in Brazilian football.' The report was unable to contact UJ Football and VaideBet. In his plea bargain, Gritzbach linked UJ Football to the name Danilo Lima de Oliveira, known as Tripa, who has been investigated by the Civil Police since the beginning of 2022. At the time, his link to PCC had already been pointed out by the police. Oliveira is suspected of participating in a kidnapping of Gritzbach in January 2022. When he was kidnapped, he was subjected to a 'crime tribunal' in which he was questioned about the suspicion of having disappeared with US$ 100 million (R$ 547 million) that belonged to drug trafficker Anselmo Becheli Santa Fausta, the head of PCC. Gritzbach was also accused of having ordered the murder of Cara Preta in 2021, which he denied. The denunciation that shell companies had received money that came from Corinthians led to the termination of the contract between VaideBet and the club in June last year. The sponsorship of the betting house was the first major contract signed by Augusto Melo's management.
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