AEGEA/Águas de Sinop executives accuse R$30 million in bribes to former mayor, reveals portal

Five executives from Aegea, controller of the Águas de Sinop concessionaire, signed award-winning collaboration agreements with the Public Ministry, between 2020 and 2021, and stated that the company paid R$30 million in bribes to the former mayor of Sinop and federal deputy Juarez Costa. The terms were approved in 2025 by Minister Raul Araújo, of the Superior Court of Justice. The information was revealed today by the Metrópoles portal. Former president of Aegea Hamilton Amadeo told prosecutors that he authorized payments that would be used to pay Juarez's campaign debts and stated that he asked for a BMW vehicle in 2014 as part of the bribe payment. According to the testimony, Amadeo authorized subordinates to arrange the purchase and, in return, the "then mayor changed rules and created laws that benefited" Águas de Sinop, which took control of the water supply and sewage in Sinop. The report by journalists Eduardo Militão in Andreza Matais' column informs that the former financial director of Aegea Flávio Crivellari detailed the acquisition and said that the car cost R$330,000 at the time - the equivalent of around R$625,000 in values adjusted for inflation and accuses Juarez of having directly asked the president to purchase the car, acquired and transferred through an operator who was an outsourced consultant for the water and sewage concessionaire. Other executives also cited the former mayor as a recipient of bribes: former administrative director Felipe Bueno Marcondes Ferraz, former commercial manager Mário Roberto Amorim Baltar and former technical manager Fernanda Bassanesi. The portal also reports that Ferraz said he operated Juarez Costa's "box 2" from 2015. According to him, the then mayor used three emissaries to withdraw money in cash at Aegea's headquarters, in São Paulo, there would be deliveries in Cuiabá and Santa Catarina. In 2015 and in the first quarter of 2016, bundles of money were delivered to intermediaries in Balneário Camboriú (SC). According to the former executive, R$1.2 million were delivered to the deputy at this location. In September 2016, a period close to the events narrated in the statement, Juarez was the target of a search warrant in Operation Sorrelfa, conducted by the Public Ministry of Mato Grosso to investigate an alleged corruption and money laundering scheme. Still in the statement, it is stated that campaign expenses were paid at gas stations in Sinop and that part of the purchase would be fictitious. Other side Aegea did not comment on the alleged delivery of the car. According to Metrópoles, in February this year, the sanitation concessionaire released a statement to the financial market in which it stated that criminal practices were in the past after the signing of the award-winning collaboration agreements with the Federal Public Ministry. "The company's adherence to the Term of Agreement as guarantor, definitively concluding the events, aimed to strengthen its commitment to ethics, thus ensuring its culture of corporate integrity", stated financial director André Pires Dias in the document. Juarez Costa's advisor has not yet commented. Source: Só Notícias