Ricardo Magro

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series about the Longview Gas Plant near White Oak and its ownership. The News-Journal, sister paper of the Tyler Morning Telegraph, takes the credibility of its reporting seriously, and its policy is to use anonymous sources only in rare circumstances. Anonymous sources in this story have been used because of an established threat of retaliation. The credentials of all plant employees have been verified.

When Brazilian managers at the Longview Gas Plant spoke of owner Ricardo Magro, they referred to him by an alias — “The Board” — according to several American employees at J. Global Energy Midstream (JGE), which operates the plant a mile south of White Oak.

“One day I asked my manager, ‘Hey, what’s the name of the owner?’ And he told me, ‘Oh, you don’t ask for that. You don’t need to know that,’” said a current plant worker.

In mid-December, Brazilian police in the city of São Paulo launched an operation against Magro. In addition to the Longview Gas Plant, Magro and his family manage multiple gas distribution companies and a refinery in Brazil that have accumulated more than $3 billion in debt from unpaid taxes, according to Brazilian state treasury data. The São Paulo Civil Police issued search and seizure warrants at six offices linked to the businessman.

Investigators suspect Magro of engineering a sprawling money laundering and tax evasion scheme allegedly connected to Primeiro Comando da Capital, the country’s largest organized drug trafficking group, according to reports published by Brazil’s largest print and TV news outlets and an internal police memo obtained by the News-Journal.

Magro lives a princely lifestyle in Miami, having purchased a waterfront mansion formerly owned by NBA superstar Lebron James in 2021, according to Brazilian news outlet CartaCapital.

The December operation is not the Longview plant owner’s first run-in with the law. Brazilian federal police issued an international arrest warrant for him in 2016, which saw Magro depart Miami for Brazil in connection to an embezzlement case. Magro maintained his innocence and was eventually acquitted.

The same year, Magro, who is also an attorney, saw his friend and legal client Eduardo Cunha arrested on money laundering and corruption charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Cunha was the president of National Congress of Brazil, the equivalent to the speaker of the U.S. House.

By 2022, Magro was embroiled in a separate investigation involving alleged bribery payments to give his refinery an advantage over competitors. That case, too, was dropped.

Neither JGE nor Magro’s press agent responded to multiple requests for comment or an emailed list of questions. However, a spokesperson for Magro said in a statement to Brazilian press regarding the operation: “[T]here is no tax evasion or irregularity on the part of the companies… and all the facts will be clarified in court.”

JGE Midstream sells the gas processed at the Gregg County plant to a sister company also called J. Global Energy, which then sells the product to domestic and international customers in Brazil.

A short Brazilian news story published in 2020 reporting Magro’s ownership of a “refinery in Texas” serves as the sole media account of his involvement at the Longview Gas Plant until the police operation in December.

Neither the websites of JGE Midstream or J. Global Energy named someone in a position of leadership. Both sites are devoid of the corporate profiles and CEO biographies common for companies of their size.

Officially, the only evidence of Magro’s interest in the Longview Gas Plant is a trail of business filings, shared addresses and the hiring of trusted personnel who have spent years serving the Magro family.

The businessman’s father, Joao Manuel Magro, was named as the governing person when J. Global Energy LLC was incorporated in 2019. The ongoing Brazilian police operation identified the use of Joao Magro’s name in companies operated by his son.

The elder Magro’s listed mailing address in Coral Gables, Florida, is the same used by his son to set up a family foundation, according to business filings obtained from the Texas and Florida secretaries of state.

Other assets controlled by J. Global Energy, such as a private jet, also appeared in Ricardo Magro’s name.

“This kind of complex, corporate structure is similar to a set of Russian nesting dolls that, when pulled apart, reveal a series of similar entities that closely resemble one another,” said John Powers, president of Hudson Intelligence, a fraud investigation firm that reviewed Magro business filings for the News-Journal.

“From the outside, it may be difficult to determine if each of the interconnected companies is performing a distinct and separate function, or whether the organization has been designed to be as complicated as possible for the purpose of concealing lines of actual control and ultimate ownership,” Powers said.

But such byzantine corporate structures do not indicate illegal activity in and of themselves, he added, nor are they unheard of in the oil and gas industry.

JGE Midstream, along with 10 other companies, are under the umbrella of J.Global Energy Holdings Inc., which itself is owned by a company called Fair Holding Ltd. based in the European nation of Malta, according to 2023 business filings.

One of those U.S.-based companies, a crypto currency mining operation in McAlester, Oklahoma, listed a non-existent corporate street address in San Francisco and presented stock photos of an office as a company-owned facility.

The Longview News-Journal visited the Longview Gas Plant in September 2024 seeking comment on worker allegations against JGE as well as clarification of the company’s ownership. Cristiano Beraldo, the CEO, was making a rare visit to the plant that afternoon.

After Beraldo declined to answer questions, the newspaper presented the incorporation documents to the CEO naming Magro’s father. Beraldo relented and said he was both aware of the Magro family and confirmed they were involved with the Longview Gas Plant.

Beraldo, an aspiring politician in Brazil, was the longtime director of Grupo Magro — the family’s network of companies — and helped operate nine off-shore companies for Magro and his family, according to the Panama and Paradise Papers, the mass data leaks that revealed a global network of tax evasion using off-shore bank accounts and shell companies.

Tonio Grech, the company secretary for Fair Holding Ltd., was also named in the Panama Papers.

Gregg County Judge Bill Stoudt said in January he was unaware of conditions at the Longview Gas Plant. Current and former employees say a lax attitude toward safety is endangering the public. In order for Stoudt to weigh in, the Texas Railroad Commission would have to take action first, as regulating gas plants is the agency’s responsibility.

Railroad commission officials declined to answer whether they are investigating JGE’s Texas operations following news of its owner’s latest entanglement with Brazilian police.

“We have not been contacted by any law enforcement regarding JGE at this time,” the commission said in an emailed statement to the News-Journal.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office declined to answer whether it was aware of Magro’s involvement with the plant or if any investigation was taking place, given the facility’s legal status as critical energy infrastructure.

Read Part 1: https://tinyurl.com/gasplantpart1