Ronald Levinsohn
Ronald Guimarães Levinsohn was a Brazilian businessman. He was the proprietor of the Delfin Group. He was involved in a multibillion-dollar corruption and embezzlement scandal in connection with the National Housing Bank of Brazil in the 1980s.
Career
In 1975, Levinsohn partnered with Rodman Rockefeller on the Cidade Vista Verde project, a plan for a high-class neighbourhood without walls and with a high degree of afforestation in the city of São José dos Campos. Today, it is a neighbourhood near Petrobras’ refinery. Ronald Levinsohn purchased the land where the Jardim Colinas condominium, Colinas Shopping, and Jardim do Golfe, a subdivision intended for the upper class, are now located.He owned the Delfin Group, which in the 1980s maintained 3.5 million savings accounts, the largest portfolio in Brazil at the time. At the end of 1982, journalist José Carlos de Assis published an exposé revealing that Delfin had settled its debt with the National Housing Bank. The Delfin Group was the largest private real estate credit company at the time, but it had high debts with the BNH. In 1982, an agreement provided for the delivery of two plots of land as a way to settle the Cr$ 60 billion owed. However, the plots of land were worth Cr$ 9 billion, about one-sixth of the debt. Settlement of the outstanding debt through this fraudulent agreement involved the names of ministers Mário Andreazza, Delfim Netto and Ernane Galvêas, who were never charged in court. Those involved have not faced any legal consequences.
The Central Bank of Brazil published the official act of closing the extrajudicial liquidation of the Delfin Group in the Diário Oficial da União on November 22, 1991. When the bank closed, most of its customers lost their savings. In 2006, the Superior Court of Justice ruled that the transfer of land to the BNH was conducted legally and at a fair price, although independent appraisers valued the properties at a much lower price.
Levinsohn also controlled the Centro Universitário da Cidade do Rio de Janeiro, the third-largest private university in Rio de Janeiro, which had 35,000 students. He was accused of using the university to launder money. In the CPI created by the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro on the case, the alleged irregularities ranged from labor irregularities to the sale of diplomas.