Brazilian civil police seized R172 million ($33.3 million) from two individuals and 17 legal entities, as part of the Operation Exchange covering six warrants in Diadema, Sao Paulo.
Claudio Oliveira was the president of the Bitcoin Banco Group, a Brazilian digital currency brokerage company that reportedly lost over 7,000 BTC following an alleged hack in 2019.
Federal authorities said the digital currencies were tied to Marcos Antonio Fagundes, who is facing charges in connection with the scam that defrauded $200 million from investors.
Brazil’s federal government is reportedly in advanced stages of planning the initial offering of shares in the freshly created Caixa Econômica Federal.
The CBDC will be part of the plan to digitize Brazil’s payment system, including launching an instant payments system and a competitive Open Banking System.
The group will investigate the implications of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) on the country’s economy, among other things.
Binance doesn’t have a license to act as a securities intermediary in Brazil, which means it has been offering derivatives illegally.
A Brazilian regulator has lifted a ban on WhatsApp payments. However, users still can’t process payments on WhatsApp due to outstanding central bank ban.
The system was not analyzed by monetary authorities in advance, and posed risks to the wider payment system in Brazil, central bank says.
The Argentinian government is cracking down on the digital currency trading sector as it seeks to prevent citizens from dumping the inflationary local currency.
The Brazilian antitrust regulator has voted to resume investigations into a ban by six of the largest private banks after they banned digital currency firms.
Brazil’s regulators have jointly launched a blockchain-powered platform to share information between them, reducing bureaucracy and increasing transparency.
