Federal District police launch Azzardo probe and secure up to R$3.483bn in blocks

The Federal District Civil Police (PCDF) launched Operation Azzardo on Thursday against a network suspected of running fixed-odds betting without authorisation and laundering the money collected from bettors. The Sobradinho Guarantees Court authorised the blocking of up to R$3.483bn from those under investigation. The report said this figure is the ceiling of the court-ordered restriction, not the amount actually seized or laundered. No arrests had been recorded when the report was published.

The operation was led by the organised crime unit Draco/Decor and involved about 200 civil police officers. Police obtained 50 search warrants, 24 in the Federal District and 26 in São Paulo, Goiás, Paraná, Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte. According to the data released, the scheme moved about R$1bn, of which R$739m went through Pix alone.

The investigation began about five months ago, based on communications from the Ministry of Finance's Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA). The regulator identified betting platforms operating without a federal licence and passed the information to the PCDF. SPA technicians placed simulated bets on the sites under investigation. The Pix QR codes generated did not lead to gaming companies but to legal entities opened in the names of third parties, with activities unrelated to betting. Among them were a psychosocial assistance clinic and a tarot goods shop, both registered in Sobradinho. Draco identified dozens of such companies, opened between February and July 2026 with identical share capital and addresses concentrated in Sobradinho, Sobradinho II, Ceilândia and towns in Goiás.

According to the PCDF, the financial hub of the scheme was a fintech based on Avenida Brigadeiro Faria Lima in São Paulo, authorised by the Central Bank to operate as a direct credit company. The report said part of the funds was converted into crypto-assets to make tracing harder. On 30 July 2026 the Central Bank had announced its intention to cancel the institution's authorisation to operate. The restriction applies only to the company's own funds and leaves the accounts of customers who are not under investigation untouched. The company's name was not disclosed.

Members of the group cited accreditations with the Paraíba and Rio de Janeiro lotteries to justify the operation of the platforms. According to the PCDF, none of the sites under investigation was covered by those licences. The state authorisations applied only to specific territories, brands and portals approved by the local bodies and were not equivalent to a federal licence. Police added that they lapsed when the transition period of Provisional Measure 1.394/2026 of 25 September ended, which banned operating, offering, intermediating and advertising fixed-odds bets without federal backing.

The court also ordered the suspension of the tax registrations and commercial registry entries of 100 companies. It ordered the lifting of bank and tax secrecy for 82 individuals and 83 legal entities. It also barred those under investigation from opening new bank accounts for 90 days. It further ordered the seizure of high-end vehicles found in the searches.

Those under investigation may face charges of money laundering, criminal organisation and document forgery. Added together in the abstract, the penalties range from 11 years and six months to 31 years, and can reach 33 years if ideological falsehood in a public document is involved. Seized computers, phones, media and crypto-asset wallets will be examined to identify the real controllers of the platforms and measure the loss to bettors.

Azzardo ranks as no fewer than the fourth PCDF operation in 2026 that concerned betting. Resina Oculta, carried out in March, went after an organisation said to rely on roughly 15 illegal betting sites to launder proceeds of drug trafficking. A group accused of faking winnings on fraudulent platforms was the target of warrants that the Brazlândia station executed in May across seven federal units. Then in June the same police station froze as much as R$ 607 mil belonging to an influencer suspected of advertising clandestine sites.