A businessman registered as the owner of ACX ITC Serviços de Tecnologia told São Paulo Civil Police that he acted as a front man for the company, according to single-source reporting from Revista Oeste. The firm later paid R$700,000, roughly USD 130,000 at recent rates, to the law office of Verônica Sterman, now a minister of Brazil’s Superior Military Court (STM), the court that handles military justice cases.
The payment took place between October 2024 and February 2025, before President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appointed Sterman to the STM in September 2025, Oeste reported. Sterman told the press that the amount corresponded to three legal opinions prepared while she was still practicing law.
What Police Heard
Ericsson de Azevedo, 50, told police in January 2025 that he sold his personal data for R$5,000, roughly USD 900 at recent rates, so the company could be opened in his name. He also said he received R$1,000, or about USD 180, whenever he had to sign documents.
The account appears in testimony and in reports by Brazil’s Council for Financial Activities Control (Coaf), the financial intelligence body that flags suspicious transactions. Oeste said those records link ACX ITC to a broader network of more than 40 companies associated with businessman Antônio Carlos Camilo Antunes, known as “Careca do INSS.”
The Financial Trail
ACX ITC declares share capital above R$100 million, roughly USD 18 million at recent rates. Coaf reports cited by Oeste said the company moved R$918.3 million, about USD 170 million, and showed “strong indications” of involvement with funds derived from drug trafficking, based on conclusions from Operation Saturno, an investigation by São Paulo Civil Police.
Oeste also reported that a joint parliamentary inquiry committee on Brazil’s National Social Security Institute (INSS), the federal pension and benefits agency, is examining R$39 billion, roughly USD 7.2 billion, in transactions attributed to the business group. A CPMI, or joint parliamentary inquiry committee, is a congressional investigation that includes members from both chambers of Brazil’s Congress.
What Is Known
The report does not say that Sterman has been accused of a crime. The fact established in Oeste’s account is that ACX ITC, a company under scrutiny in financial-intelligence and police material, paid her law office before her appointment to the military court.
Sterman’s stated explanation is that the payment covered legal work: three opinions produced before she joined the STM. The available source does not provide the content of those opinions, the contracting documents, or any public response from ACX ITC, Azevedo, Antunes or the Lula administration.
The case places a judicial appointment in the orbit of a broader investigation into alleged front companies and suspicious financial flows. Based on the material reported so far, the central unresolved question is whether the R$700,000 payment was a regular legal fee, as Sterman says, or part of a wider financial pattern now under review by police, Coaf and Congress.