It was found that a furniture company in the Ribeirão Preto region laundered money through remittances abroad, simulating payment for imports.
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Operation Octopus
From there, a network of companies and people was discovered that were used to move high values, the result of illicit activities. According to authorities, the group moved more than R$22,3 billion between the end of 2014 and the beginning of this year.
Octopus is the name of a mollusk and gave the operation its name because it refers to the “tentacles” used by the organization to commit crimes.
Counties
Court orders were complied with in the municipalities of Ribeirão Preto, Guatapará, Jaboticabal, São Paulo, Jardinópolis, São José do Rio Preto, Barretos and Brodowski and in the cities of Uberlândia (MG) and Foz do Iguaçu (PR). The decision of the 4th Federal Court of Ribeirão Preto also determined the blocking of real estate, vehicles, balances and investments in current accounts and cryptoasset portfolios of those under investigation.
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misrepresentation
The investigations also revealed the practice of ideological falsehood. The money passed through bank accounts opened fraudulently, many of them in the name of orange companies, that is, front companies.
“The investigation carried out so far has uncovered a large-scale criminal organization, marked by the complexity of its relationships, the internationalization and professionalism of its operations and the use of techniques of concealment and money evasion that are very current and difficult to trace”, highlighted the public prosecutors who are members of the Special Action Group to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco) of the MPF in São Paulo.
Second MPF note, the investigations were based on judicially authorized breaches of banking and tax secrecy of the companies involved and on the analysis of reports from the Financial Activities Control Council (Coaf). The next steps will be determined based on the analysis of the evidence collected this Thursday (6).
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