O monthly it was a scheme to embezzle public money, organized by some members of the Workers' Party (PT).
These used the amount to pay federal deputies from the allied base in exchange for votes in favor of government projects.
It was discovered in 2005, based on denunciations by federal deputy Roberto Jefferson, of the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB).
Monthly Origin
On May 14, 2005, Veja magazine carried an article in which a former postal employee, Maurício Marinho, explained to two businessmen how embezzlement worked at the institution. Likewise, in the video, Marinho received a bribe of three thousand reais.
In the conversation, clandestinely recorded, he mentioned that the principal was the federal deputy and president of the PTB (Brazilian Labor Party), Roberto Jefferson.
Upon being denounced, Roberto Jefferson gave an interview to the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, in which he detailed the vote-buying scheme for deputies from the government's allied base.
According to Jefferson, some parliamentarians received, every month, around 30 thousand reais from the Workers' Party (PT) to vote in favor of government projects.
This money was called “mensalão”, a corruption of the word “allowance”, indicating its periodicity.
Thus began two investigations in the Chamber of Deputies. First, the Post Office Parliamentary Inquiry Commission was installed, which collected the testimonies concerning corruption in the state-owned company and the CPI do Mensalão, which investigated the payment of bribes to deputies.
Accusation of José Dirceu
Called to the House of Representatives' Council of Ethics and Decorum, Roberto Jefferson reported that he had received four million undeclared reais from the PT.
Jefferson appointed PT treasurer Delúbio Soares as responsible for distributing the monthly allowance. However, he acquitted President Lula.
On that occasion, he also accused the then-Minister of the Civil House and the second PT man, José Dirceu, of being aware of what had happened.
Two days later, José Dirceu resigns from his position and is replaced by the then Minister of Mines and Energy, Dilma Rousseff.
Dirceu, however, would return to the Chamber of Deputies to fulfill his mandate as a parliamentarian.
Monthly Operation
Deputy Roberto Jefferson explained that the deputies' advisors went to a branch of the Banco Rural to receive the monthly allowance that varied between 20 and 60 thousand reais.
Thus, it was discovered that the money was coming out of the accounts of businessman Marcos Valério. The scheme was simple: Valério took loans from Banco Rural in his name, handed the money over to the PT and the PT used it for campaign expenses.
Likewise, Marcos Valério was a guarantor for loans to the Workers' Party, along with PT president José Genoino.
PT treasurer Delúbio Soares revealed that it was undeclared money, the so-called "cash 2". Soares explained that this was a normal procedure used by various parties in their electoral campaigns.
The publicist and marketer of Lula's campaign, Duda Mendonça, was also summoned to testify at the CPI. In his statement, he said that he received money from the PT without giving a receipt and that this was deposited in an account abroad.
President Lula and the Mensalão
In July 2005, then President Lula gave a television interview explaining that:
“It hurts whoever it hurts, we will continue to be relentless in investigating corruption. The PT has to explain to Brazilian society what mistakes it has made. What the PT did, from an electoral point of view, is what is systematically done in Brazil”.
Thus, in August 2005, the president made a statement on national television apologizing for the corruption caused by some members of his party.
Former President Lula denied the existence of the monthly allowance, but at the end of his second term, he admitted that he was aware of the scheme as early as 2005.
Conviction in the Chamber of Deputies
After the conclusion of the testimony of the Ethics Council of the Chamber of Deputies, a request was made to revoke the mandate of 19 accused parliamentarians.
Of these, 3 deputies resigned their mandate, 1 died and 12 kept the position. Only Roberto Jefferson (PTB), José Dirceu (PT) and Pedro Corrêa (PP) were revoked and became ineligible.
After that, the denunciation of the monthly allowance was filed with the Supreme Court in 2006.
Judgment and Condemnation of the Mensalão in the STF
The complaint was received in 2007 and the process was instructed until 2011. Due to changes in the members of the Supreme Court, the judgment only took place in 2012.
The defendants were accused by the Public Ministry of conspiracy, money laundry, active corruption, passive corruption, currency evasion, embezzlement and mismanagement.
The judge of the case was judge Joaquim Barbosa, who defended the existence of the formation of a gang and the conviction of the defendants in the first instance. This point of view went against the arguments of the reviewer Ricardo Lewandowski and both magistrates had several heated debates during the sessions.
The Federal Supreme Court tried 38 defendants. Of these, 12 were acquitted, 1 died in the process and 25 were convicted of one or more crimes.
Toucan Monthly
Parallel to the judgment of the PT monthly allowance, evidence began to emerge that the practice of paying deputies in exchange for support came from the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003).
The scandal was named after "toucan monthly", as the bird is the symbol of the PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira).
According to the Federal Public Ministry, the tucano monthly payment was a public money corruption scheme that would have embezzled around 3.5 million reais from state companies in Minas Gerais.
This crime occurred during the campaign for the reelection of the candidate for the government of the state of Minas Gerais, Eduardo Azeredo, from the PSDB.
This illicit amount was captured by advertising agencies belonging to the publicist Marcos Valério, who provided receipts for works that were never carried out.
The businessman, in exchange for the reduction of the sentence, collaborated with the Minas Gerais Justice. In this way, Valério is a defendant in both the PT's monthly allowance and the tucano allowance.
Azeredo was sentenced to 20 years in prison and began serving them on May 23, 2018. Marcos Valério was sentenced to 16 years in prison for crimes of embezzlement and money laundering.
The deputy governor of Minas Gerais, Clésio Andrade, who was running on Andrade's ticket, was also sentenced to five years in prison in 2018.
The process of the tucano monthly payment remains open and affects several names in the PSDB, such as the federal deputy for Minas Gerais, Aécio Neves.