The Federal Revenue Service said the scheme encompassed nearly all links of the fuel chain controlled by organized crime — from importation, production, distribution, and retail sales to final stages of asset concealment and protection through fintechs and investment funds.

Search and seizure warrants were executed against roughly 350 targets — individuals and companies — across eight states: São Paulo, Espírito Santo, Paraná, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Goiás, Rio de Janeiro, and Santa Catarina.

The operation mobilized more than 350 federal tax agents, supported by the São Paulo state public prosecutor’s office (MPSP) through its special organized crime unit (Gaeco), the federal prosecutor’s office (MPF), the Federal Police, state civil and military police, São Paulo’s treasury department (Sefaz/SP), the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), and the São Paulo state attorney general’s office (PGE/SP).

The National Treasury Attorney General’s Office (PGFN) also filed civil lawsuits to block more than R$1 billion in assets, including real estate and vehicles, to secure unpaid tax credits. Authorities estimate the scheme enabled more than R$7.6 billion in unpaid federal, state, and municipal taxes.

Investigations indicate that a sophisticated scheme laundered money coming from crime and obtained profits in the fuel production chain through the use of several operating companies to hide the criminal origin of the money. Tax evasion and product adulteration increased the profits.

Financial operations carried out through fintechs made it difficult to track the amounts transacted, according to the Federal Revenue Service. The laundered profits were then shielded in investment funds with several layers of concealment in order to try to prevent the identification of the real beneficiaries.

The Federal Revenue Service identified at least 40 investment funds, with assets of R$30 billion, controlled by the PCC. According to the agency, the operations took place in the financial market of São Paulo, through infiltrators on Avenida Faria Lima, as the main financial hub of São Paulo is popularly known.

The investigations indicate that one of the axes of the illicit plot is the irregular importation of methanol — the cargo arrives in the country through the Port of Paranaguá (Paraná), but is not delivered to the recipients registered in the invoices.

The product is diverted and clandestinely transported, with fraudulent documentation and in disagreement with safety standards, to gas stations and distributors to adulterate fuels and thereby generate billionaire profits for PCC. More than 300 gas stations in the country were identified as part of the scheme.

Investigators highlight that, in these establishments, consumers pay for volumes lower than those informed by the pumps or for adulterated fuels, outside the technical specifications required by the National Petroleum Agency (ANP).

At the same time, the Federal Police (PF) launched two operations in São Paulo and Paraná to curb the performance of organized crime in the fuel production chain.

The Ministers of Justice and Public Security, Ricardo Lewandowski, and of Finance, Fernando Haddad, alongside the Director-General of the Federal Police (PF), Andrei Rodrigues, and the Deputy Secretary of Audit of the Federal Revenue Service, Andrea Costa Chaves, will give a press conference later this morning to detail the two PF operations against organized crime in the fuel sector.

In São Paulo, State authorities and the Federal Revenue Service will present details of the action of the billionaire money laundering scheme by the PCC. Participating in the press conference are the head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of São Paulo, Paulo Sérgio de Oliveira Costa; the Secretary of Security of São Paulo, Guilherme Derrite; the Special Secretary of the Federal Revenue, Robinson Barreirinhas, in addition to prosecutors. Both press conferences are scheduled for 11 a.m.

Importers acted as intermediaries, purchasing abroad naphtha, hydrocarbons, and diesel with resources from formulators and distributors linked to the criminal organization. Between 2020 and 2024 alone, more than R$10 billion in fuels were imported by those investigated.

In turn, formulators and distributors, in addition to gas stations also linked to the organization, repeatedly evaded taxes in their sales operations. The Federal Revenue has already constituted federal tax credits totaling more than R$8.67 billion against individuals and companies that are part of the scheme.

Another fraud detected involved fuel adulteration. Methanol, supposedly imported for other purposes, was diverted for use in the manufacture of adulterated gasoline, with serious damage to consumers.

The formulators, distributors, and gas stations were also used to launder money of illicit origin. There are indications that the convenience stores and the managers of these stations, in addition to bakeries, also participated in the scheme.

Tax auditors from the Revenue identified irregularities in more than 1,000 gas stations distributed across 10 states. Most of these stations played the role of receiving cash or through card machines and moving crime proceeds for the criminal organization through their bank accounts in the money laundering scheme. Between 2020 and 2024, the financial movement of these stations was R$52 billion, with a very low tax collection that is incompatible with their activities. The stations have already been fined by the Revenue in more than R$891 million.

However, about 140 stations were used in another way. They had no movement between 2020 and 2024, but, even so, they were recipients of more than R$2 billion in fuel invoices. Possibly, these simulated acquisitions served to hide the movement of illicit amounts deposited in distributors linked to the criminal organization.

The amounts were inserted into the financial system through fintechs, companies that use technology to offer digital financial services. The Federal Revenue identified that a payment fintech acted as a “parallel bank” of the criminal organization, having moved more than R$46 billion from 2020 to 2024. The same people controlled other smaller payment institutions, used to create a double layer of concealment. The fintech also directly received cash. Between 2022 and 2023, more than 10,900 cash deposits were made, totaling more than R$61 million. This is a procedure completely strange to the nature of a payment institution, which operates only with book money.

The use of fintechs by organized crime aims to take advantage of loopholes in the regulation of this type of institution. These loopholes prevent the tracking of the flow of resources and the identification, by control and inspection bodies, of the amounts moved by each of the fintech’s clients individually.

One of these loopholes is the use of the “pool account,” an account opened in the name of the fintech itself in a commercial bank through which resources from all its clients transit in a non-segregated manner. This was how financial clearing operations between distributors and gas stations were carried out, as well as financial clearings between companies and investment funds managed by the criminal organization itself. The fintech was also used to make payments to collaborators and for personal expenses and investments of the main operators of the scheme.

Another loophole is the non-obligation to provide information to the Revenue on the clients’ financial operations through the e-Financeira system. In 2024, the Revenue promoted regulatory changes regarding the e-Financeira aiming to give greater transparency and reduce the opacity of payment institutions, changes that were revoked at the beginning of 2025 after a wave of fake news on the subject.

Thus, the fintech was a powerful financial hub of the criminal organization, but invisible to control and inspection actions.

The money of illicit origin was reinvested in businesses, properties, and other investments through investment funds that received resources from the fintech, making it difficult to trace and giving it an appearance of legality.

The Revenue identified at least 40 investment funds (multimarket and real estate), with assets of R$30 billion, controlled by the criminal organization, mostly closed-end funds with a single shareholder, usually another investment fund, creating layers of concealment. Among the assets acquired by these funds are a port terminal, four alcohol-producing plants (two more plants in partnership or in the process of acquisition), 1,600 trucks for fuel transport, and more than 100 properties, among which six farms in the interior of São Paulo State, valued at R$31 million, and a residence in Trancoso (Bahia), acquired for R$13 million.