The Federal Police (PF) and the Federal Revenue Service (RFB) are on the streets of seven states this Thursday (22) with the Colossus operation, to combat evasion, money laundering, and criminal association between the years 2017 and 2021 , which still exist.
Two warrants for preventive arrest, 37 for search and seizure, 15 for legal entities and 22 for individuals, are being served in seven states: São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina, Pernambuco and Paraná.
The Justice also determined the blocking of assets and values of the investigated in the approximate value of more than R$ 1 billion. The search warrants among legal entities include six in Exchanges, four in financial institutions authorized to operate in the foreign exchange market by the Central Bank and also three in accounting offices.
According to the investigations, which started from a Financial Intelligence Report, with reports of suspicious banking transactions involving crypto assets. Also according to the PF, those involved would have been divided into groups, which would be responsible for acquiring large virtual assets abroad, such as in Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States, which were sold in Brazil.
They would have remitted more than R$ 18 billion abroad, part of the documents presented to the banks have indications of misuse of purpose, with the intention of hiding the origin of the money, whose investigations showed that the North American Exchanges did not accept the purchase of crypto assets with money from Brazil.
Another group took care of the purchase of the arbitrators’ virtual assets and their resale to individuals and legal entities, but with strong indications of involvement in previous illicit acts. Finally, a group formed by shell companies that acquired crypto assets with the aim of laundering money. In this case, among the clients, there were dead people, elderly people over 90 years old, beneficiaries of assistance programs, money changers, smugglers and traders from popular areas in several Brazilian cities, especially Brás and 25 de Março, in São Paulo. .
In addition, according to the PF, only one accountant took care of 1,300 companies located in popular shopping districts in the capital of São Paulo. Most of these companies were ghost companies and that, during the investigated period, there would have been a movement of about R$ 1 billion with arbitrators and Exchanges.
Police investigations showed that when the police carried out an operation, the shell companies investigated were closed and new ones opened, for the continuation of the activities of movement of values. In four years, those involved moved more than R$61 billion through the normal banking system. Altogether, more than 40 financial institutions moved funds from those involved. In some cases, the institutions, upon detecting such suspicious movements, communicated to COAF and ended the relationship with the investigated clients. However, those investigated filed lawsuits in court and obtained favorable court decisions, forcing the banks to continue moving resources from these companies.
Investigations indicate that during the years 2017 and 2019, the virtual assets preferred by those involved, for hiding values or remittances abroad, were virtual assets such as Bitcoin. But with the great volatility, from 2020 onwards, Bitcoin was replaced by other virtual assets similar to foreign currencies such as the US dollar, called stablecoins, with lower value variation.
The Federal Revenue, when carrying out tax analyses, showed that the investigated provided thousands of statements in accordance with the RFB regulations. But when these statements were compared with the bank transactions of those involved, discrepancies of more than R$ 1 billion were discovered, in a single case. Those involved will answer for the crimes of evasion of currency, money laundering to criminal association, among others, whose sentences exceed 30 years in prison.
The name of the operation is an allusion to the computer of the same name, developed during the Second World War by British cryptanalysts. The objective was to decipher the coded communication, allowing allies to anticipate and neutralize enemy movements. Likewise, this police operation aims to “lift the veil of anonymity” that protects money laundering through virtual assets, providing control and regulatory bodies with subsidies to anticipate illegal laundering actions, thus neutralizing , this type of practice.
Source: CNN Brasil
