October 25, 2022

16:10

from the Editorial Office

MANAUS – Supporters of the candidacy for the Government of Amazonas of Senator Eduardo Braga (MDB), the mayors of Tabatinga (1,106 km away from Manaus), Saul Nunes Bemerguy (MDB), and Benjamim Constant (1. The mayors of Benjamim Constant (1,124 km away from the capital), David Nunes Bemerguy (MDB) – two municipalities in the so-called triple border of drug trafficking, between Brazil, Peru and Colombia – have already been denounced for illegal practices during their political careers, according to news recently published by the state press.

Saul was removed from office for 90 days last year as one of the targets of a Federal Police (PF) operation, which investigates crimes such as bid-rigging, embezzlement, active and passive corruption, and money laundering. According to the investigations, the mayor, secretaries and high-ranking municipal officials held fraudulent bids with a group of local businessmen for the construction of schools and municipal day care centers.

The Federal Police investigate evidence that Saul chose the winning companies before the bidding process and, after receiving amounts from the federal government’s Fund for Maintenance and Development of Basic Education and the Appreciation of Education Professionals (Fundeb), he set up the bidding procedure to carry out municipal works that had already been inaugurated. At the end, he paid the businessmen involved in the frauds, who later appropriated the amounts passed on and returned part of the profit.

In March 2020, Saul had already been denounced by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) for embezzling more than R$ 19 million in federal funds intended for education programs in the municipality in 2009 and 2010. Besides the mayor, was also denounced at the time, the then accountant of the Municipality of Tabatinga, Gilberto Macedo da Silva, who also participated in fraudulent operations.

He was also denounced to the Court of Audit of Amazonas (TCE-AM) for nepotism, for appointing his daughter Salúvia Solis Bemerguy de Souza to the position of ‘representative of the municipality’ in Manaus. The representation was brought by the General Secretary of External Control of the TCE.

David Bemerguy

David Bemerguy was accused of appointing as extraordinary secretary of the Municipal Civil House of Benjamim Constant the lawyer Davi Barbosa de Oliveira, who was acting as municipal attorney and had even been hired as the lawyer of Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, the “Pelado”, a confessed defendant in the double murder of the indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and the journalist Dominic Phillips.

Benjamim Constant is one of the municipalities where the main suspect of ordering the death of the pair, the leader of a criminal organization linked to illegal fishing, Ruben Dario Villar, aka “Colombia”, was active. Oliveira was also the lawyer of “Colombia’s” ex-wife, Marilda de Souza, during their divorce process.