Brazilian Federal Police Raids 6 Crypto Exchanges in Money Laundering Investigation

This article is adapted from CoinDesk Brasil, a partnership between CoinDesk and InfoMoney, one of Brazil's leading financial news publications. Follow CoinDesk Brasil on Twitter.

The Brazilian Federal Police began raids on six undisclosed crypto exchanges on Thursday in an investigation into tax evasion and money laundering involving the use of cryptocurrencies.

As part of Operation Colossus executed in conjunction with the Brazilian tax authority, the Federal Police is carrying out 101 warrants issued by a criminal court in São Paulo, according to an official police report. They include two arrest warrants and 37 search and seizure warrants.

In addition, the police ordered the freezing of roughly $238 million in assets and securities held by those under investigation, and they also seized an undisclosed amount of virtual assets held by 28 exchanges under investigation.

The investigations stemmed from a report conducted by Brazil's Financial Intelligence, which found suspicious bank activity linked to the trading of crypto assets. The alleged crimes occurred between 2017 and 2021, but according to the Brazilian police they are ongoing.

This article was translated by Andrés Engler, and edited by CoinDesk. The original Portuguese can be found here.

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Rodrigo Tolotti

Rodrigo Tolotti is a crypto editor at InfoMoney, a leading financial news publication in Brazil. He graduated in Journalism from Faculdade Cásper Líbero.

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