The Federal Police of Brazil made an announcement on September 22nd in regard to launching an operation against money laundering activities.
The Brazilian Police will not be carrying out the operation on its own as it will be supported by the tax authority of Brazil.
Operation Colossus
The authorities have announced that they have just launched the final stage of their operation against the money laundering activities involving cryptocurrencies.
The particular project they had been working on for years has been dubbed “Operation Colossus”. As the authorities now claim they are close to shutting the case for good, they have claimed it is the final stage of the operation.
The Police of Brazil has been running the operation for over four years. Throughout this time, the police authorities have carried out multiple raids and investigations, getting more than 100 court orders.
The police have revealed that the 100 court orders they executed from the court were against multiple cryptocurrency exchanges. In particular, there are six cryptocurrency exchanges that the authorities have gotten the orders passed against.
In addition to the cryptocurrency exchanges, the police also had the court pass orders against four forex operators plus multiple arbitrage agents.
The police had the court pass orders against these entities based on the suspicion that they were involved in aiding illicit activities. The authorities have gathered enough proof against these entities for their involvement in facilitating operations related to money laundering.
Participations of the Forces
The authorities have confirmed and thanked everyone who was part of Operation Colossus. To be exact approximately 130 policemen were involved in the operation.
Throughout the operation, the police authorities were able to deliver two arrest warrants. In addition to the warrants, the police authorities were able to acquire multiple seizure orders as well as 37 search orders from the court.
The operation was carried out all over the country and the orders were passed in four states of Brazil. The states where the orders were passed include Santa Catarina, Sao Polo, Bahia, and Rio de Janeiro.
Even the tax authority of Brazil provided their contribution to the operation. Around 28 tax authority officers from Brazil were part of Operation Colossus.
Operation Details
According to the report made public by the Brazilian Police Authorities, the criminals were involved in laundering money in and out of the country using the remittance systems. However, they were concealing the black money with the help of cryptocurrencies.
The Federal Police has confirmed that in over 4 years of investigation, they established that the criminals laundered a total of $391 million in and out of the country.
The majority of the transactions processed by the criminals involved the mentioned entities.