The Secretary of Justice of São PauloArthur Lima, set up an offshore company in the tax haven of Bahamas who began to control a network of companies in Brasília and Goiás with records of millionaire profits while he occupied strategic positions in the government Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans).
The company abroad was opened in February last year, when Lima headed the Civil Housemain political and administrative coordination folder of the São Paulo government. Throughout 2025, the offshore company took control of a Brazilian holding company also created by him and, through it, started to hold shares in at least three companies.
THE Sheet the secretary stated that the offshore company “was created as a vehicle for family patrimonial organization” and that the corporate structure has “exclusively patrimonial and family purposes, without any relation to the exercise of public office”.
He also said that he maintains rules of asset segregation and governance to avoid conflicts of interest, but refused to inform the origin of the profits obtained by the companies in the period, stating that he followed “confidentiality rules”.
Lima is one of the governor’s closest allies and right-hand man. The two met at the Army Cadet Preparatory School, in Campinas, in 1992, and worked together in the Army, at Dnit (National Department of Transport Infrastructure) and at the Ministry of Infrastructure.
Opening companies abroad is permitted by Brazilian legislation and does not constitute a crime, as long as it is informed to the Federal Revenue —which Lima claims to have done. In São Paulo, secretaries of State must also complete an annual declaration of assets, which is publicly accessible.
Data for 2025 is not yet available, but between his inauguration in January 2023 and December 2024, Lima’s declared assets grew 53%, from R$4.2 million to R$6.4 million.
Lawyer, Lima did not maintain registered businesses other than public service until the beginning of his term in 2023. He even had a law firm, which closed in 2020.
In February 2023, one month after assuming the Civil House, he opened Artorius Participações in Brasília, registering as a partner and appointing his son, Arthur Lima Filho, then 20 years old, as non-member administrator.
Last year, he registered Artorius Holding in Nassau in the Bahamas, with himself as CEO and director. He then transferred his shares from the Brazilian company to the offshore company of the same name.
In total, Artorius recorded a profit of R$916,800 in 2024, according to minutes registered with the Commercial Board of the Federal District. Between January and October 2025, according to the same document, the profit was R$2.7 million.
After transferring control to offshore, Lima also changed the structure of the companies. Over the past year, limited companies have been transformed into public limited companies. In this model, shareholders do not need to be included in the public records of commercial boards.
After the corporate reorganization, the holding company acquired stakes in at least three companies. The two with the biggest financial turnover are the construction company Amisar and the consultancy Triad.
Amisar Empreendimentos is headquartered in Luziânia (GO), close to the border with the Federal District, and, according to the balance sheet, operates “in the construction of housing units intended for sale through the Federal Government’s Housing Program”.
The 2025 balance sheet showed a 96% jump in revenue compared to 2024, reaching R$4.4 million. The company distributed R$2 million in dividends.
Amisar’s profit margin is much higher than that of the main companies in the sector. Five construction companies listed on the Stock Exchange and operating on Minha Casa Minha Vida had, in 2025, net margins between 6% and 20%. Amisar declared 79%.
Asked about the difference, Lima stated that the margin “results from the accounting methodology applicable to the construction sector, and not from extraordinary profitability”.
According to him, part of the company’s expenses do not yet appear as costs, because they are accounted for as investments in ongoing projects. However, according to the balance sheet, the year 2024 had already recorded a profit margin of 64%.
When asked about the average cost of a property produced by the company, Lima did not respond directly. He simply said that “the family holding operates exclusively as a shareholder, without any management, administration or executive representation role in the company.”
Triad Consultoria, headquartered in Brasília, presented a lean operation, with no head office expenses and practically no personnel expenses (R$ 1,830 in labor obligations in 2025), but revenue of R$ 922 thousand last year, with no identification of customers in the balance sheet.
In addition to the revenue, the company declared a loan of R$768 thousand in the period and an outflow of R$1.3 million for investment in a solar energy generation plant.
“The financial movements mentioned refer to regular operations between companies in the same economic group,” stated Lima, saying that the resources were used in business expansion.
Asked about which services Triad provides and to which clients, the secretary stated that the consultancy’s relationships “follow confidentiality rules specific to business activity, which prevents the disclosure of clients, values and the specific scope of contracts.”
Arthur Lima Filho, administrator at Artorius, is now 23 years old and presents himself on LinkedIn as an IT professional. The Bahamian offshore company’s attorney is dentist Ana Luiza Paim de Oliveira Cunha, 47, who is also president of the construction company Amisar (with a 20% stake in the company) and, until the middle of last year, of the Triad consultancy.
Ana Luiza is married to Márcio Rafael da Cunha, a retired soldier who worked in the bidding sector of the Army Police Battalion, the same area in which Lima worked as an auctioneer. The secretary said he has been friends with him “for more than 20 years.”
THE Sheet He reached out to the couple by phone. Upon learning of the matter, Ana Luiza said she was driving and could not speak. Afterwards, he didn’t answer again.
One of the duties of the Civil House, a department headed by Lima between January 2023 and January this year, is to mediate transfers of government funds to city halls and assistance entities.
Throughout the government, deputies from the base and other allies of Tarcísio complained about the government’s slowness in releasing resources and, behind the scenes, attributed the delay to the governor’s right-hand man.
As the electoral calendar approaches, Tarcísio gave in and removed Lima from the Civil Housebut appointed him to the Department of Justice, a vacancy after the departure of Fábio Prieto.
Asked about measures adopted to avoid conflicts between public service and business activity, Lima stated that he had established “a rigorous structure of asset segregation and governance, based on the absence of participation in the management of companies, the lack of contracts with public administration entities and in full compliance with asset transparency obligations”.
When asked how the construction company, which declares to operate with federal public financing, could not have contracts with public entities, he replied that the financing contracts are made between Caixa Econômica Federal and the buyers, without the company’s participation.
“The total income (which he obtained from the companies) is duly reported in the Annual Income Tax Adjustment Declaration submitted to the Brazilian Federal Revenue Service, as well as in the declarations of assets required for the exercise of public office”, he stated.
The report also sought out Palácio dos Bandeirantes to comment on the secretary’s business, but the Tarcísio administration did not send a statement beyond Lima’s note.
TIMELINE
January 2023 — Lima takes office at the Civil House
February 2023 — Artorius Participações opens in Brasília.
March 2023 — Triad Consultoria is registered
February 2025 — Lima registers Artorius Holding in Nassau, Bahamas, and transfers control of the Brazilian holding company to it.
Between February 2023 and March 2025 — Artorius acquires 80% of Amisar Empreendimentos, a construction company in Luziânia
March 2025 — Amisar is transformed from Ltda into SA. Ana Luiza Paim, attorney at Artorius, becomes CEO.
June 2025 — Triad Consultoria is transformed from Ltda into SA
December 2025 — Artorius records the distribution of R$3.65 million in profits offshore, to be paid between 2026 and 2028
March 2026 — Lima leaves the Civil House and takes over as Secretary of Justice
