In March, police arrested banker Daniel Vorcaro and his brother-in-law, businessman and pastor Fabiano Campos Zettel, for their roles in what Brazil’s finance minister said could be “the largest banking fraud in the country’s history,” with losses totaling $9.7 billion.
Central Bank of Brazil ordered the liquidation of Banco Master, a bank owned by Vorcaro, in November due to a “severe liquidity crisis” and investigated suspected crimes of criminal organization, fraud, market manipulation, and money laundering. The bank issued securities at above-market rates, which it backed with fictitious credits.
Authorities also accuse Vorcaro, who built a wide network of influence among politicians and judges, of bribing Central Bank officials and paying internet influencers to attack officials and intimidate journalists who were covering the case.
The scandal has also drawn attention to Lagoinha Belvedere, a local church Zettel founded and pastored, and the larger Lagoinha Global denomination to which it belongs. Before working in finance, Vorcaro briefly hosted a music program on Rede Super, a radio and television network owned by Lagoinha’s mother church, Lagoinha Matriz.
Police identified Zettel, who is married to Vorcaro’s sister Daniela, as the main financial operator of the fraud, as he owned several companies that did business with the bank. Between October 2024 and January 2026, Zettel made money transfers totaling $8.35 million from his own accounts to those of Lagoinha Belvedere, transactions investigators suspect to be money laundering.
Lagoinha Global has distanced itself from Zettel and Vorcaro, and Brazilian Christians feel surprised and suspicious. The church is also known for its close ties to former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt. Lagoinha Global did not respond to CT’s request for comment.
“The image of Lagoinha has become tainted,” said Ricardo Bitun, sociologist and pastor of Igreja Manaim, a Pentecostal congregation in São Paulo.
Lagoinha, officially called Igreja Batista da Lagoinha, has often courted controversy. Four years after its founding in 1957, the Baptist Convention of the State of Minas Gerais kicked out the church as it grew increasingly charismatic. Today, more than a quarter of Brazilians identify as evangelical, and among that category, about 60 percent are Pentecostal.
In the 1990s, Lagoinha gained prominence as its worship group, Diante do Trono (Before the Throne), grew into a phenomenon in Brazilian Christian music. Led by Ana Paula Valadão—daughter of then-senior pastor Márcio Valadão—the group sold millions of albums. Congregants filled the church’s pews, causing it to grow into the fourth-largest megachurch in Latin America in 2022. Today, the denomination has more than 650 churches in Brazil and more than a dozen other countries.
In December 2022, Valadão, who had led the church for 50 years, handed off leadership to his son, André. The rocky transition led to 70 churches leaving the denomination, as many felt André lacked his father’s charisma.
André has been politically outspoken about his support of Bolsonaro. During the 2022 presidential election, he allowed Bolsonaro, who was running for reelection, to speak at the pulpit of Lagoinha Orlando, the Florida church André leads. Bolsonaro then claimed the election was a “fight of good against evil.” A few months later, he spoke at another Lagoinha church.
Zettel, who was Bolsonaro’s largest donor during his campaign, founded Lagoinha Belvedere in 2024. A year later, during its inauguration ceremony for a new building—a former car dealership renovated to an auditorium with 2,000-person capacity—André preached the sermon. In that service, Valadão praised Vorcaro’s parents, Henrique and Aline. “We’ve been friends since my single days, lifelong friends, friends for years, for decades,” he said. He said he and Zettel have been friends for 20 years.
Then came scandal.
Police first arrested Vorcaro on November 17, 2025, releasing him 12 days later with an electronic ankle monitor. Four months later, authorities rearrested him and sent him to a prison in Brasília as a judge cited a “strong indication” Vorcaro attempted to bribe a former central bank director with gifts. Police also discovered text messages exchanged between him and a group of aides (including Zettel), in which they discussed plans to beat up journalists and former bank employees.
Lagoinha Global removed Zettel from pastoral duties in November after his name was mentioned in the Banco Master investigations. Yet Zettel continued to serve as the president and legal representative of Lagoinha Belvedere.
Police also arrested Zettel twice, first on January 14. Authorities took his passport and cell phone before releasing him. The following day, Lagoinha Global issued a statement emphasizing that “there is no indication, evidence, or proof that the Igreja Batista da Lagoinha has been used, directly or indirectly, in any irregular scheme or practice.”
On March 4, police again detained Zettel and placed him in a prison in Potim, a city 100 miles northeast of São Paulo, alleging that he could hinder the investigations. A week and a half later, Lagoinha Global closed Lagoinha Belvedere, deleted its social media accounts, and sealed off its building.
On March 22, Lagoinha Matriz played a video of André saying that Lagoinha Global “has no connection whatsoever to this scandal.”
“I found myself lost,” he said in the video. “I ask for your forgiveness for trusting people, for opening my heart to some people without truly knowing that there were situations in their lives that did not align with what I believe.”
A committee of Brazilian congressmen has requested information about the church and its financial arm, Clava Forte Bank, which it suspects was used in transactions with Banco Master. The denomination created Clava Forte Bank in March 2024 to serve as a payment method for its churches’ transactions. Church leaders shut it down on November 21, which André attributed to the high cost of software to prevent hacking and fraud.
André maintains that any mention of Lagoinha Global’s dealings with Banco Master are “unfounded accusations from the left.”
Among Brazilian Christians, the reaction toward the involvement of a pastor and a church in financial scandals was mixed.
“There is a group [of Christians] that says it is necessary to denounce the problems in the church,” Bitun said, referring to Lagoinha’s ties to Banco Master. “And it has a biblical basis in an eschatology that reminds us that in the last days scandals and false prophets would be revealed.” He notes that another group “is more cautious against rash judgment and asserts that we should not judge.”
Sen. Damares Alves, a former pastor at Lagoinha, noted that as her congressional committee investigates pension fraud—which Banco Master is also involved in—it has seen the names of many “big churches and pastors” come up.
“When a prominent pastor is mentioned, the community says, ‘Don’t talk about it, don’t say anything, don’t investigate, because the faithful will be very sad,’” she said. While it caused her “deep discomfort and sadness” to see Christians named, she believes the committee has the duty of verifying the facts.
Pentecostal pastor Silas Malafaia, leader of the Vitória em Cristo branch of the Assemblies of God, responded by calling Alves a “loudmouth.” “Your accusation was frivolous and generally denigrates the evangelical church!” he wrote on his X account.
In early April, Luis Fernando Souza, pastor of a Lagoinha church in São Leopoldo, cut his church’s ties with the denomination, citing difficulties with Lagoinha Global. In a video that went viral, he pointed out inequalities in the church, including high salaries among some leaders.
Souza told CT that although he didn’t want to antagonize the denomination, administrative policies that “have nothing to do with the purity of the church” adopted after André became the head of the church forced his departure. He mentioned high costs for adopting aesthetic standards in churches, mandatory remittances of money to the denomination, adoption of specific software, and use of accounting systems.
“Most churches are neighborhood congregations; placing these obligations on pastors is inhumane,” he said.
Furthermore, Souza pointed to research he conducted last year: Within Lagoinha Global, 37 percent of pastors were considering leaving the ministry, 44 percent reported having suffered emotional problems (including depression, burnout, and suicidal thoughts), and 84 percent said they had never received emotional support from the denomination.Souza noted that before his departure from Lagoinha, two families from his church (which gathers around 200 people each Sunday) had said they planned to leave due to the scandal. While he believes Zettel could have laundered money, he doubts André or the larger denomination would have known about it.
“I am very saddened because, in general, it’s a church that preaches the Word of God,” Souza said. “But all of this has a lot of potential to harm the church.”
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