Banco Master SA’s former chief executive Daniel Vorcaro was returned to custody for a second time in roughly three months as a widening probe into the collapsed lender added allegations of threats, intimidation, and illegal access to sensitive law-enforcement data, Bloomberg reported.

Vorcaro, who has faced fraud accusations since November following Banco Master’s collapse last year, was detained again after investigators alleged he threatened to attack a prominent journalist, oversaw associates who gained unauthorized access to restricted databases tied to Brazil’s authorities and international agencies, and sought to interfere with ongoing investigations, Bloomberg said.

The international agencies allegedly accessed by his associates include the FBI and Interpol, according to the report. 

A court filing described what investigators said was Vorcaro’s effort to gain influence inside Brazil’s central bank, alleging he paid former central bank director Paulo Sérgio Neves de Souza and Belline Santana, who headed bank supervision, through sham consulting contracts to advise him on dealing with regulators. The central bank said it suspended two employees during an internal review of Banco Master’s liquidation process and sent evidence of alleged crimes to federal police, Bloomberg reported.

Investigators also cited efforts to intimidate and potentially silence members of the press as part of a broader pattern of threats and violence. In one WhatsApp group message cited in the reporting, Vorcaro allegedly wrote that he wanted someone to “break all of his teeth” in what appeared to be a staged robbery targeting a journalist identified by O Globo as Lauro Jardim. 

One Vorcaro associate arrested in the same operation, Luiz Phillipi Machado de Moraes Mourao, attempted suicide hours after being jailed and was later declared brain dead, Bloomberg said in a separate report citing an article by Folha de S.Paulo.

Banco Master’s downfall has reverberated across Brazil’s financial sector and politics, with Itau Unibanco Holding SA estimating the hole left in the federal deposit insurance fund could be as much as 55 billion reais ($10.5 billion), according to the news agency. 

Read more at Bloomberg