Senate president Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) has told the senators who make up the CPI on Gambling that he will act to try to close the commission's work ahead of schedule. The CPI was created in November and has until April next year. The move would be a response to rumours that gambling site owners are victims of fraud.

Pacheco has no power to kill an ICC, but he can sew up deals capable of hollowing out the commission, for example by ordering its members to stop attending sessions.  Last week, after arguing with Senator Soraya Thronicke (Podemos-MS), rapporteur of the CPI, during a session of the collegiate body, Senator Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI) approached the president of Congress to inform him of suspicions that a well-known lobbyist from Brasilia was extorting money from businessmen, allegedly in collaboration with members of the commission.

Ciro Nogueira told the Senate president that he had received information that lobbyist Silvio de Assis had asked for 40 million reais from a businessman to avoid being called to testify at the ICC, alleging that he had influence over some congressmen.

Without directly accusing Soraya Thronicke, Nogueira claimed that the rapporteur has a close relationship with the lobbyist. She admits knowing Assis, but stresses that she has no friendly relationship with him.  ‘This is defamation, slander,’ she said.

Melancholy end

In September last year, a similar move saw the end of the CPI on Sports Betting, which had been set up in the Congress of Deputies to investigate manipulation of football matches. The committee had a deadline of November last year, but was closed two months earlier, without even voting on the final opinion of the then rapporteur, Felipe Carreras (PSB-PE).
The closure came after a report published by VEJA revealed that Carreras had allegedly asked for 35 million reais from the representative of an association of sports centres in exchange for help and protection in the commission. The complaint was made by the president of the National Association of Gaming and Lotteries, Wesley Cardia, to José Francisco Manssur, special advisor to the Ministry of Finance. In his testimony before the ICC, Manssur confirmed the story.