The Brazilian Federal Police carried out an operation to dismantle a money laundering scheme linked to the criminal faction Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), known as the most powerful mafia in Brazil, through digital financial companies. In collaboration with the State Prosecutor's Office, authorities reported that these entities offered alternative financial services to traditional banks and used complex financial engineering strategies to hide the true beneficiaries of the transferred funds.
During the operation, a preventive arrest warrant was executed in São Paulo and ten search warrants were issued at homes in the cities of São Paulo, Santo André, and São Bernardo do Campo. Additionally, the blocking of funds in eight bank accounts was ordered and the temporary suspension of the economic activities of the implicated payment entities.
According to reports, the fintech companies pointed out in this investigation are 2GO Bank and Invbank, which had already been linked to organized crime in the past. The investigation was initiated following the statements of an informant, Antônio Vinicius Gritzbach, who was murdered in November near Guarulhos airport. Gritzbach had accused these digital financial companies of laundering assets for the PCC in his testimonies to the Prosecutor's Office.
As a consequence of the murder of the PCC informant, in mid-January, fifteen Brazilian police officers were arrested due to suspicions of their involvement in the crime. The PCC faction emerged three decades ago in the prisons of São Paulo and is now spread throughout Brazil, as well as parts of South America, especially in Paraguay and Bolivia. The networks of this criminal organization include alliances with the Italian 'Ndrangheta and criminals from Balkan and African countries, according to the São Paulo Prosecutor's Office.
