Influencer and businesswoman Ana Paula Ferreira, better known as Ana Pink, and her husband are being investigated by the Public Ministry on suspicion of running a money laundering and criminal organization scheme in Ribeirão Preto (SP). Ana Pink is CEO of Wowe, a digital credit-facilitating company.
According to TV Globo, because she has underage children, she is under house arrest. Her husband Maiclerson Gomes da Silva, nicknamed Maick Gomes, is being held in the Provisional Detention Center in Ribeirão Preto. Both were arrested in a house valued at R$ 2 million in March, in a luxury condominium in Bonfim Paulista. The couple’s 19-year-old son is accused of also participating in the criminal scheme.
The Public Ministry alleges that eight people are involved in the frauds that would be led by the couple. The list of blocked assets, which total more than R$100 million, also includes three apartments in the upscale Jardim Olhos d’Água neighborhood.
According to the TV Globo report, the investigation points out that the scheme began with a hacker entering the INSS (National Social Security Institute) database to steal retirees’ records – in a first attempt, there would be 360,000 names.
With the information from the retirees, bank agents made payroll loans without the victims asking for the money, but it went to the account and the debt had to be paid in 80 months and with interest. The suspects reportedly earned R$10 million in commissions.
The prosecutor Frederico Meloni Camargo detailed the crimes committed: forgery of signatures, multiple loans made to the same victim’s account, false identity of bank agents, editing of audios and records of complaints from injured customers and even photographs forged to give ” appearance of legality” in the contract.
Credit that would be “advantageous” accompanied unplanned charges and “endless” installments. “People who are unable to even have a financial education to interpret that embezzlement, what that loan meant, what they will eventually have to pay and how much that will affect their retirement,” Camargo told Globo. “Our attempt now is to reverse this situation.”
Ostentation and the other side
In cell phone messages, the influencer’s husband, Maiclerson Gomes da Silva, nicknamed Maick Gomes, calls his wife rich and she replies that she wants to end the year 2020 with “about R$ 4 million” in the account, two apartments, one house and a total of R$ 800 thousand in cars, and even projected that at age 48, their life would be traveling.
The businesswoman denied involvement in a criminal scheme. “There is no victim in this process. There was no complaint from any customer or even the banks, so I have no idea why all this,” she told the broadcaster.
When asked about people not being aware of the loan, she defended herself by saying that all contracts are in agreement. “It is not true. One of the banks has already manifested itself this week and stated that all contracts are in agreement and there is no fraud”.
To Globo, the INSS says that it does not share personal data of retirees and that the payroll loan operation is carried out directly between the bank and the customer.
