Judge Antonio Maria Patiño Zorz, of the 1st Electoral Zone of São Paulo, has ordered the opening of a criminal investigation to find out who created and received sums in a fake online crowdfunding carried out in the name of the pre-candidate for mayor of the capital of São Paulo Guilherme Boulos (PSOL), as the State showed. The investigation will be conducted by the Federal Police, since it is an electoral crime.
“I order criminal representation with the attachment of a full copy of such files and I accept the request to start a police investigation requested by the learned representative of the Electoral Public Prosecutor (…) with the consequent sending of said files to the Federal Police Authority in order to ‘provide the data of those responsible for the advertising, the ownership of the bank account that received the sums and the hearing on the facts of the representatives of the company and of the pre-candidate'”.
While PF agents try to identify the author of the false campaign, the trial at the São Paulo Electoral Court will be suspended. This is because the electoral action is civil and, in order to judge its future validity, it is necessary to identify the author of the incident. Online crowdfunding was temporarily suspended by order of magistrate Patinõ Zorz on June 26.
The goal of the fake profile, which used a photo of Boulos with the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, was R$50,000, but there is a record of only one donation, starting at R$5.
The action was brought by federal deputy Psolista. “According to deputy Guilherme Castro Boulos, this is a false campaign of irregular collection of electoral resources (…) he claims that his data has been used fraudulently to obtain financial benefits,” the magistrate quoted in the preliminary decision in June.
On the official website ‘Vakinha’ there are some tips to avoid scams. “Unfortunately, some news about fake crowdfunding has worried our users. These are malicious people who exploit the goodwill of good people to try to raise funds. Although they are still a minority (they represent less than 1%), fake crowdfunding deserves special attention from our team and our users”, reads the post on the portal.
For victims who donate and then discover it is a scam, the site also informs that there is a deadline to get the money back before it becomes available for withdrawal by the criminal. “If you end up donating to a fake campaign, within the Vakinha site, do not worry. All donations, before becoming available for withdrawal, are ‘quarantined’ for 14 days. In other words, you will have at least that period to request a refund of the amount. Just contact us,” they informed.
Source: Terra
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