President Lula’s son, Fábio LuÃs da Silva, known as Lulinha, confided to close friends that he was about to form a business partnership with lobbyist Antonio Carlos Camilo Antunes, nicknamed “Careca do INSS” (Baldy of INSS)
The deal involved the production of medicinal cannabis-based medicines, a field Lulinha witnessed firsthand during a trip to Portugal in 2024.
On that occasion, the two traveled together to visit a pharmaceutical factory in Europe.
Upon returning, Lulinha said he was excited by what he had seen and that the lobbyist had invited him to join the partnership.
However, the plan did not go ahead because of the scandal that erupted soon after.
“Careca do INSS” is identified by the Federal Police as the mastermind behind a billion-dollar fraud that diverted more than R$ 4 billion from the pensions of elderly people.
Lulinha, who is the target of investigations by the Federal Police and the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the INSS (National Institute of Social Security) for suspected involvement in this scheme, assures, through his lawyers, that the partnership never materialized and that he did not receive any payment from the lobbyist-who, incidentally, paid for his trip to Portugal.
Lulinha’s name emerged in the investigations after the testimony of a former executive of the lobbyist’s companies.
The informant stated that the president’s son received a monthly allowance of R$ 300,000 to facilitate contacts with the government.
Since then, the Federal Police have been more closely analyzing Lulinha’s financial transactions.
The bank statements revealed that, between 2022 and 2026, he moved R$ 19.5 million and made more than 1,500 bank transactions.
The INSS Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry approved requests to break his bank, tax, and telephone secrecy, but Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino suspended these measures on a preliminary basis, alleging a lack of justification.
Currently, Lulinha lives with his wife and children in Madrid, Spain.
Published in 03/15/2026 14h07
Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption.
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