PF fulfills 69 warrants for drug trafficking and sale of court sentences

On the morning of this Tuesday (14), the Federal Police carried out 69 arrest and search and seizure warrants in two operations to combat international drug trafficking and the sale of judicial sentences to traffickers, in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Santa Catarina and Maranhao.

According to the corporation, a federal judge and his son, a lawyer, are suspected of selling judicial sentences to the criminal organization that practiced international drug trafficking, money laundering and financial crimes. The names were not disclosed by the Federal Police.

The operation involving the judge, the “Habeas Pater”, fulfills 17 search and seizure warrants in Brasília, Belo Horizonte and São Luiz. The suspects can answer for the crimes of drug trafficking, participation in a criminal organization and money laundering with penalties that, added, can reach 38 years of imprisonment.

The criminal organization itself is being investigated in the second phase of the “Flight Level” operation, initially launched in 2021, suspected of moving profits from trafficking through the acquisition of real estate, luxury vehicles, jewelry and crypto assets without declaring income.

According to the Federal Revenue Service, which is taking part in the operation, the leaders of the criminal organization are suspected of impersonating entrepreneurs in the financial sector in order to set up companies and move funds around the country.

“Companies were created on behalf of intermediary persons, without economic and financial capacity, in order to disguise their connection with the leaders of the scheme and with the purpose of diverting the attention of public authorities”, he said in a note.

25 search and seizure warrants are served in Belo Horizonte and the metropolitan region and in the capitals São Paulo and Florianópolis. Five other preventive arrest warrants, five temporary arrest warrants, 17 warrants for the seizure of motor vehicles and seven properties, in addition to the blocking of bank accounts and crypto assets of 34 people and companies, are also carried out.

According to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF), the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) authorized measures such as prohibiting the investigated persons from accessing certain locations and contact between them. According to what has already been determined in the ongoing procedures, only in cryptocurrencies, the companies involved in the scheme would have moved amounts that exceed R$ 60 million.

The MPF claims that this is the first operation resulting from the coordinated work between the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and the Special Action Group to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco) in Minas Gerais.