[3][4] Celso Daniel was fifty years old, when he held the office of mayor of Santo André for the third time, he was kidnapped on the night of January 18, 2002, as he was leaving a steakhouse located in the Jardins region, in São Paulo.
[6] On Antônio Bezerra Street, near number 393, in the Vila Vera neighborhood, Sacomã District, in the South Zone of the capital, the criminals closed the mayor's car.
[8] On the morning of January 20, 2002, Sunday, the body of Mayor Celso Daniel, was found with eight shots, on Estrada das Cachoeiras, in Bairro do Carmo, at kilometer 328 of the Régis Bittencourt highway (BR-116), in Juquitiba.
According to the final police report, presented by Delegado Armando de Oliveira Costa Filho, from the Department of Homicide and Personal Protection ( DHPP), six people from a gang in the Pantanal favela, in the South Zone of São Paulo, committed the crime.
[10] The police investigation concluded that the criminals kidnapped Celso Daniel by chance, frustrated by losing sight of their target, a businessman whose identity was not revealed.
Until Itamar and Bonzinho got out of the Blazer, fired in the direction of the Pajero and pulled Mayor Celso Daniel out of the car, surrendered by force.
[15][16] Celso Daniel's family was not satisfied with the result of the first police investigation, which said that the mayor was the victim of a common crime, mistakenly murdered by a gang of kidnappers.
This hypothesis is questioned by many, since João Francisco, affiliated to the Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), opposed his brother, with whom he was personally and politically broken.
[24] João alleges that his brother, when he was mayor of Santo André, knew and was colluding in a corruption scheme in the city hall, which served to divert money to the Workers' Party.
The alleged scheme would involve members of the municipal government and businessmen from the transport sector and would also count on the participation of José Dirceu.
[25] Bus operators in the ABC Paulista region, such as the Gabrilli family, which controls Viação São José / Expresso Guarará , confirmed that Sérgio Gomes da Silva, known as Sombra, collected a monthly bribe from companies, with amounts ranging from R$40,000 to BRL 120 thousand.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, it was Sombra who ordered the mayor's death so that an alleged corruption scheme in Santo André's city hall would not be discovered.
Prosecutors Roberto Wider Filho and Amaro José Tomé, from the Gaeco of the Public Ministry of Santo André, asked in 2005 for the reopening of police investigations.
Prosecutors asked that the case not be forwarded again to the Department of Homicide and Personal Protection (DHPP) of the São Paulo Civil Police., who had already concluded by the thesis of common crime.
Even after the investigations were reopened, the general delegate at the time, Marco Antônio Desgualdo, declared that he believed in the thesis of common crime, which is vehemently denied by prosecutors and Celso Daniel's family.
A second inquiry, conducted again by the chief delegate of the 78th DP, Elizabete Sato, indicated by the then secretary Saulo de Abreu, opened in the second half of 2005, amidst the turmoil of the CPMI dos Bingos, the so-called "CPI of the End of the World " .
[28] Sérgio Chief and former councilor Klinger Souza (PT), accused of leading a bribe distribution gang in the city, were not recalled because there were no new elements to be asked and "not to turn the investigation into a political event".
The prediction was that, when this phase was completed, if the Justice recognized that there was sufficient evidence that the defendants were the perpetrators, it would submit the case to the final judgment in the jury court.
Investigations into the death of Celso Daniel gained new elements in 2012 with the testimony of Marcos Valério, operator of the monthly allowance, in a trial before the Federal Supreme Court .
Marcos Valério told the Attorney General's Office, trying to sign a plea agreement, that former President Lula and former Minister Gilberto Carvalho were being extorted by a criminal involved in the case.
[30] In 2019, a new complaint was made by Marcos Valério, who accused, through rumors, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of being one of the masterminds of the murder.
[31] The prosecutor responsible for investigating the murder, Roberto Wider Filho, denied having heard this accusation from Valério, and GAECO itself also rejected this version.
[32] Businessman Sérgio Gomes da Silva, known as "Shadow", one of the main people involved in the crime, died of cancer on September 27, 2016, in the city of São Paulo.
[33] Graduated in Pedagogy, with a postgraduate degree in Philosophy of Education, Sérgio Gomes da Silva was a teacher for employees at Pirelli, a company where Celso Daniel was part of the veteran basketball team.
Leader of the Favela Pantanal gang, he was rescued by a helicopter from the Prison Parada Neto, in Guarulhos, two days before the kidnapping of Celso Daniel, in which he participated.
[40] Ailton Freitas, one of the prisoners who escaped with him, said that Dionísio had been rescued to carry out the task of "archive burning" of a "big fish" and that businessman Sérgio Gomes da Silva, "Shadow" would be the perpetrator of the crime.