00:00We're going now to Brazil. The federal police, in conjunction with tax authorities and other agencies, carried out the largest operation against organized crime in its history.
00:09The action against the first command of the capital, an organization linked to drug trafficking, reveals connection to financial capital.
00:17Our colleague Ignacio Lemus gives us the details.
00:19Amidst United States' rhetoric of fighting drug trafficking as an excuse for military occupation of the region,
00:32Brazil carried out the largest police operation in its history with 1,400 agents to dismantle a criminal scheme by the criminal organization First Command of the capital in the fuel sector.
00:42Search and arrest warrants were issued in eight states.
00:45The hidden carbon operation discovered that the group evaded the equivalent of more than us $1.4 billion in taxes.
01:01We managed to decipher the very sophisticated money trail.
01:05There are many layers. For example, linking closed funds in layers to which, in order to get to the criminal's assets,
01:11you need the intelligence of auditors who open the accounts of those funds to understand where the money is coming from.
01:26If it weren't for that, we wouldn't have been able to get to more than a thousand gas stations, for refineries,
01:31and more than a thousand trucks, at the disposal of organized crime to transport fuel, which is generally adulterated.
01:37Sometimes the adulteration begins at the import stage, with fraud.
01:51In other words, it is an extremely capillary scheme from a material point of view,
01:56and extremely sophisticated from a financial point of view.
01:58The organization used the legal fuel market as a means of illicit enrichment through the financial market and its satellites in tax hands.
02:13There is a key figure in money laundering, that is, digital technology companies serving the financial market,
02:20which offer payment, credit, and investment services at a lower cost than traditional banks.
02:25They do not have physical branches and are difficult to regulate.
02:30Their activities were authorized during the government of Jair Bolsonaro.
02:33Organized crime today is very sophisticated because it is in politics, in football, in the justice system.
02:45It is everywhere.
02:46It is a very powerful international force.
02:49What we have discovered is that there are many people linked to organized crime.
02:53More than 350 individuals and companies are involved in economic, environmental, and financial crimes, including money laundering and tax fraud.
03:07The first command of the capital controls at least 40 investment funds, with assets exceeding $5.4 billion,
03:14according to the Federal Revenue Service, Brazil's tax authority.
03:17The first capital command is the largest criminal organization in Brazil, and its growth was financed through drug trafficking.
03:25For the first time, an operation against the group is not entering the Favlis armed, but rather the epicenter of the financial market.
03:35It is very significant that Faria Lima, that center of wealth in the city of São Paulo,
03:43is the focus of an operation that demonstrates its link to the PCC.
03:46This is because traditionally, the mainstream media and political sectors linked to the right-wing
03:54have tried to link the first capital command to the poorest, blackest sectors of society, to the peripheries.
04:05First capital command linked funds financed the purchase of a port terminal for ethanol plants,
04:111,600 tanker trucks, and more than 100 properties, including multimillion-dollar estates in the interior of São Paulo.
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