The vote in the Federal Senate on the bill to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies in Brazil, scheduled for this Tuesday (26), takes place amid a significant increase in the number of actions by the Federal Police to combat crimes committed through the use of this cryptocurrency. type of financial asset.
According to PF data sent to Sheetthe number of operations against crimes involving cryptocurrencies jumped from 16 in 2020 to 65 last year – that is, an increase of 306%.
The text provides that the exchanges responsible for buying and selling crypto assets will need to be accredited by an institution designated by the federal government – whose rules must be published in decree.
On another front, the bill seeks to toughen penalties and clarify punishments for those responsible for cryptocurrency fraud.
The text amends the Brazilian penal code to include the crime of fraud with cryptocurrencies, which will carry a prison sentence of four to eight years.
In addition, it includes crypto-asset fraud in the legislation regarding crimes against the financial system and money laundering.
The project also seeks to achieve the so-called “green mining”. In this sense, it will eliminate taxes and contributions for the acquisition and import by 2029 of machines and software used in the “processing, mining and preservation of virtual assets developed by legal entities governed by private law”.
The vote on the proposal that regulates the use of this type of asset was scheduled for Tuesday (19), but the session ended without deliberation because a provisional measure – which has priority – ended up locking the agenda.
The text that will be analyzed is the result of an articulation to unify the proposals being processed in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate and thus facilitate their sanction in the first semester.
This is because federal deputies had already approved a proposal on the subject at the end of last year.
In the Senate, the proposal to regulate cryptocurrencies had been approved in a final character by the Committee on Economic Affairs, in February, but there was an appeal for a vote in plenary.
The rapporteur of the proposal in the Senate, Irajá (PSD-TO), then took the opportunity to present a new opinion, in which he already unifies the proposals. The new report was read at the session on the 19th.
Irajá stated that the cryptocurrency market moved BRL 215 billion in the last two years. However, as there is no regulation, there has also been a large increase in the amount of fraud.
“Cryptocurrency is a great reality, and we cannot pretend that it does not participate in people’s daily lives. Amazingly, today cryptocurrencies are used as a payment method, in addition to being a way to invest and apply its resources”, said the senator.
One of the existing criticisms of the proposal is that it requires other normative acts, such as laws and decrees, to regulate certain points.
Lack of regulation hinders the identification of crimes by the PF
Even with the increase in actions, the PF says that most cases are not identified because of the lack of regulation and the need to employ modern technologies to track digital currencies.
In July 2021, for example, the PF launched the Daemon operation, which targeted Cláudio José de Oliveira, known as the “king of bitcoin”.
A report produced by Coaf (Council for the Control of Financial Activities) and used by the PF in the investigation details thousands of suspicious transactions of individuals and legal entities that somehow had a relationship with Oliveira’s companies. He would have diverted BRL 1.5 billion from 7,000 customers.
A month later, in August, the Kryptos operation advanced over the scheme led by businessman Glaidson Acácio dos Santos, known as the “bitcoin pharaoh” and which accumulated more than 67,000 customers in almost five years of operation.
In 2022, a PF investigation into the money laundering scheme behind mega-trafficker Luiz Carlos da Rocha, the Cabeça Branca, discovered the relationship of people involved in drug trafficking with targets of investigations on illegal mining and crime with crypto-assets.
According to the investigation, the businesswoman Eliane Medeiros de Lima, investigated for acting in the bitcoin pharaoh scheme, also appeared in transactions with members of a group of the mega trafficker.
The crimes most committed in the cases investigated by the PF are foreign exchange evasion, money laundering and unauthorized financial institution operation. Crypto assets have also been used in pyramid cases, which in the penal code are typified as a crime against the popular economy.
As well as the use of cryptocurrencies, the PF investigations on the subject are also recent and began to emerge about four years ago.
“The PF has been making an effort to face this new type of criminal practice, trying to overcome these difficulties to better fight crime in this aspect”, says the agency.
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