The Federal Court converted the temporary arrest of Ryan Santana dos into preventive (without a term) Santosthe MC Ryanby Marlon Brendon Coelho Couto da Silva, the MC Poze do Rodo, and the others involved in the Operation Narco Fluxoon the afternoon of this Thursday (23).
The decision of the 5th Federal Court in Santos occurred after a request from the Federal Police. The investigation points to the existence of a sophisticated criminal organization for laundering money from illegal betting and raffles, which allegedly generated a turnover of R$1.6 billion.
The request for preventive detention of all those involved occurred hours after the STJ (Superior Court of Justice) grant habeas corpus to all prisoners in the operation under the justification that maintaining the prison would be illegal, as the PF had requested the prison for five days and not 30, as determined by the judge.
Those being investigated have been in prison since the 15th and, with the new decision, they must remain in prison.
In the decision, federal judge Roberto Lemos dos Santos Filho states that the preventive detention of those under investigation is legally necessary, appropriate and proportionate.
“Initially, it is worth noting that the investigative phase of this procedure is not completely exhausted. On the contrary, the current scenario reveals a sensitive and critical moment in the investigation, in which high technical complexity measures are concentrated, especially related to the extraction and consequent analysis of telematic and financial data related to all those investigated”, says an excerpt from the decision.
As justification for the arrest, in addition to the risk of concealment or destruction of evidence, the magistrate points to the existence of an “organized structure and the division of tasks of the criminal association” and “the concrete seriousness of the facts, involving the movement of extremely high values and possible connection to larger-scale illicit activities”.
“The freedom of those being investigated, in this context, represents a concrete risk of the continuation of illicit activities, given that the criminal association has a structure suitable for its rapid recovery and operational continuity”, he argues.
MC Poze’s lawyer, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, states that the new arrest request made by the PF does not result from any new fact.
“We have already expressed ourselves in the case file indicating the unusual nature of the request, requesting the court not to corroborate this oblique attempt to subvert a decision of the Superior Court of Justice and the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate possible crimes of abuse of authority, in particular due to the leak of images of the execution of temporary detention at the residence of our constituent”, he declared.
Felipe Cassimiro, who represents MC Ryan, criticized the request for arrest made only after the granting of habeas corpus by the STJ.
“The manifestly extemporaneous nature of the request is perplexing. If the preventive requirements had been met before, why wasn’t it requested at the appropriate time?”, he said.
Operation Narco Fluxo arrested well-known names from the world of funk and social media, such as MC Ryan, MC Poze and owner of the Choquei pageone of the biggest entertainment companies in the country.
They are being investigated on suspicion of money laundering and currency evasion. The operation carried out 39 arrest warrants, as well as search and seizure orders and the freezing of assets of those involved.
According to the investigation, the illicit resources originated mainly from the exploitation of unregulated gambling, betting, clandestine digital raffles and digital swindling practices. There is also evidence of the scheme being used to launder money from international drug trafficking.
MC Ryan was named as the leader and beneficiary of the laundering scheme. According to a court decision in the case, which is being processed in the 5th Federal Court of Santos, in coast of São Paulothe artist uses companies linked to music production and entertainment to mix legitimate revenues with money raised from illegal bets and digital raffles.
The police claim that he created ways to protect his assets, transferring shareholdings to family members and partners. He would use a network of financial operators to disguise his relationship with illicit gambling money before reinvesting it in the purchase of luxury properties, vehicles, jewelry and other high-value assets.
