A settlement worth R$1.4 million
On 15 October three people under investigation in Operation Conto da Sorte reached an agreement with the state prosecutors of Rio Grande do Norte, in north-east Brazil. They will pay R$200,000 and forfeit a further R$1.2 million, and they admitted taking part in the acts under investigation.[1]
Companies linked to the group must also show, within 180 days, that they have put a compliance programme in place. The investigation of the others involved goes on.[1]
The finance ministry announced the agreement on 16 October. It says the operation grew out of a technical analysis by its Secretariat of Prizes and Bets (SPA), Brazil's federal betting regulator. The federal tax authority, the Receita Federal, launched the operation in June with the prosecutors of Pernambuco and Rio Grande do Norte.[1]
A town lottery and hacked web pages
The group is suspected of running games of chance illegally. One of its tools, according to the investigators, was Lotseridó, a lottery set up by Bodó's municipal government, in the interior of Rio Grande do Norte.[1]
Investigators say the group broke into public bodies' systems and inserted code into pages on ".gov.br" and ".edu.br" addresses. Those addresses belong to government and educational institutions, and the code sent users on to illegal betting sites. The aim, they say, was to borrow the credibility of those pages so that the illegal sites looked legitimate.[1]
According to the investigators, the group used front companies registered in other people's names to move money and hide who was behind it. The people used included those on low incomes, recipients of social benefits and organisers' relatives. The leaders, the investigators say, kept control of the bank accounts through powers of attorney. The prosecutors found 21 companies registered at the same non-existent address in Bodó.[1]
Sources
- Ministério da Fazenda (Brazil) — Atuação da SPA contribui para investigação de esquema milionário de apostas ilegais no Rio Grande do Norte (16 October 2026, Portuguese). The agreement and its terms, the compliance requirement, the operation and the SPA's analysis, Lotseridó, the hacked pages, the front companies and the 21 companies at one address.
