Leaked messages from the phone of Banco Master owner Daniel Vorcaro indicate that lawyer and digital influencer Gabriela Prioli recorded videos defending the bank under a 12-month contract, following scripts that were submitted to Vorcaro for approval, according to reporting by Estadão. The messages suggest the videos were presented to audiences as spontaneous, independent commentary rather than paid content.
Prioli has denied any commercial relationship with the bank or with Vorcaro, and says he never edited, approved or directed her content.
Why it matters
The reporting raises questions about undisclosed paid influence in Brazilian media, at a time when Banco Master was under investigation over billion-real fraud allegations. If verified, the arrangement described in the messages would mean viewers were shown commentary framed as personal opinion that was in fact coordinated with the subject of that commentary. The case also touches on broader concerns about how financial institutions may seek to shape press coverage and public debate.
What the messages describe
According to Estadão, the exchanges were extracted from Vorcaro's cellphone. In them, Ana Matos, who served as the bank's superintendent of communication and marketing between 2023 and late 2025, confirms a signed contract with the influencer and describes Prioli as part of a digital rapid-response group financed by Master. That group, the messages indicate, consisted of roughly 15 influencers across the political spectrum, tasked with pushing back against press coverage and defending the bank's business interests.
The reporting states that Prioli sent her videos for prior approval by Vorcaro's team and incorporated editing requests he made directly. Vorcaro praised the arrangement in a message dated April 6, 2025, calling the hiring of Prioli the best strategy of all by a wide margin, according to Estadão. The messages reference at least four posts by the influencer that were produced with guidance from the bank's team. Those posts have since been deleted by Prioli.
The exchanges began in early April 2025. On April 4, Vorcaro told Matos that Prioli was an excellent move, Estadão reports. The following day he sent his first script suggestions. He shared one of her posts in which she described feeling excluded after entering São Paulo's high society, and said he identified with it. Vorcaro, who frequently claimed Banco Master was being targeted by larger banks, wrote that the text should mention him and the attacks, so as to explain the fake news, according to the reporting.
Later that day, Matos reported back that she and Prioli were finishing the script for the post. She described the meeting as excellent and said Prioli was firm and had clear opinions, adding that the contract was signed for 12 months. She also wrote that for three months, renewable or not, the bank would have around 15 highly engaged influencers, and that she was evaluating available profiles and adding them gradually.
Vorcaro then suggested changes to the influencer scripts, including removing references to the Workers' Party because people wanted to politicize the matter, and said the content needed to state that he was a target of prejudice from bankers. Matos replied that she had put that into Prioli's material to provide that hook.
The first video was published in early April of last year and can no longer be found on Prioli's pages, surviving only through reposts by her critics, according to Estadão. It followed the March 28 announcement of negotiations for Banco de Brasília (BRB) to acquire Master, a deal that raised suspicions about whether the operation was intended to conceal and resolve problems facing Vorcaro's institution. Vorcaro was arrested for the first time in November 2025.
In the video, Prioli opened by asking who turns their nose up at something they want to buy, and said it was a common strategy for mid-sized banks to offer higher returns on fixed-income investments than their larger competitors. She compared it to the situation of finding faults in a property one wants to purchase. She framed the video by saying she had been following news on the subject because she was starting a series about money, not as an expert but as someone interested.
Prioli's denial
Contacted by Estadão, Prioli again denied being hired by Master and said Vorcaro never edited her content.
In a statement, she said that Vorcaro never edited, approved or guided any content she produced, and that she had never been approached by him or entered into any commercial relationship with him. She called the claim irresponsible and extremely serious, and said legal measures were already being taken. She asked where the evidence was for the information cited, where the alleged contract was, and where proof of the alleged payments was. She said all of her revenue is documented by invoices and that none were issued to Banco Master or companies linked to Vorcaro, which she said reinforced that she has no commercial relationship with them. She added that conversations about her are not conversations with her, and that unproven assumptions are not truths.
On the evening of Friday, October 16, Prioli posted a video on her Instagram account restating that position. She said she had never held any meeting with anyone from Banco Master, whether Vorcaro or anyone representing him, in person, by phone, by video conference or by message, and that she had never received guidance or suggestions from those people. She said she never signed any contract with the bank or any company linked to Vorcaro and denied receiving payment from businesses tied to him, asking where the 12-month contract and the payments were.
Related reporting on Vorcaro's media dealings
The Estadão report is one of several published accounts of Vorcaro's alleged efforts to influence coverage. Metrópoles reported that he paid 1 million reais to delay and soften a story in Folha de S.Paulo. Gazeta do Povo reported that he edited articles for a news portal before publication, and UOL Notícias reported the same about texts on the site Metrópoles. Migalhas published an editorial note titled "Non-negotiable questions," which appeared in the same news roundup but whose contents were not detailed in the material reviewed here.
Taken together, the reports describe a pattern in which the bank's owner is alleged to have sought leverage over both independent commentators and news outlets during a period when his institution faced scrutiny.
What happens next will likely depend on whether the alleged contract and payment records surface, and on how Brazil's press and regulators respond to the accumulating accounts of undisclosed influence at Banco Master.
