Rio de Janeiro investigates disappearance of R$ 18.5 million from Loterj payment processor Rio Pag

The Rio de Janeiro state prosecutor’s office will seek access to the bank records of Rio Pag, the company hired by Loterj to process lottery and betting payments, after R$ 18.5 million under its custody could not be found in its accounts before being returned. For high-risk payment players, the point is not the drama; it is the mechanics: escrow-like custody, failed restitution, and a contract dispute that now involves a court freeze and a bank-secrecy request.

1. The Procuradoria-Geral do Estado do Rio de Janeiro plans to request the lifting of bank secrecy over Rio Pag in the coming weeks to trace where the R$ 18.5 million went and to verify the origin of the funds that were eventually repaid.
2. The case has been unfolding for four months between Loterj and Rio Pag, a company linked to lawyer Willer Tomaz, a personal friend of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) and former lawyer to ex-governor Cláudio Castro (PL). Tomaz says he represents the company but denies any ownership or management role. Loterj says Rio Pag still owes about R$ 4 million in late-payment interest, adjustment, and fines; Rio Pag disputes that claim.
3. Rio Pag was hired under Castro’s administration through a tender held in March 2023. The contract runs until 2028 and pays the company 2.5% of each cash in transaction and 1% on cash out operations. The dispute started in February 2025, when Loterj ordered that payments processed by Rio Pag be held in the company’s custody subaccounts after Pixbet, a state-licensed betting company, failed to pay contractual fees and tried to withdraw money tied to the regulator’s remuneration.
4. The custody model ended on 10 April 2026, about 20 days after Ricardo Couto took over the state government. Loterj then demanded the return of the R$ 18.5 million accumulated in custody and sent three formal notices to Rio Pag. After the third request, on 29 April, Rio Pag refused to return the full amount and предложed paying in installments until the end of the contract in 2028. Loterj rejected that plan, as well as a second schedule proposed by the company, which would have run until October.
5. In July, Loterj went to the Tribunal de Justiça do Rio and obtained an order to freeze up to R$ 20.9 million in the company’s accounts, including contractual fines and late-payment interest. When the Conselho Nacional de Justiça system executed the order, it found only R$ 726,000 in accounts linked to Rio Pag’s CNPJ. The following week, R$ 16.5 million was sent by Pix from one of the company’s accounts, and together with an earlier R$ 2 million transfer in June, the amount returned reached the original R$ 18.5 million. Loterj says that does not close the matter.