MP says “Mineiro” appeared as a winner in 570 betting and prize reports tied to R$ 176.4 million between 2020 and 2025

Antônio Carlos Freixo Júnior, known as “Mineiro,” was listed 570 times as a “winner” in betting and prize-related reports between 2020 and 2025, with transactions totaling R$ 176.4 million, according to an investigation by the São Paulo Public Prosecutor’s Office (Ministério Público de São Paulo). For PSPs and financial crime teams, the interesting part is not the lotteries themselves — the report says they are not under investigation — but the pattern: repeated prize events, third-party betting, and funds landing in company accounts.

1. Freixo is one of the targets of search and seizure orders in the third phase of Operação Carbono Oculto, carried out on Thursday (24) against an alleged money laundering scheme and organized crime infiltration in the fuel sector.
2. The MP says Freixo is the leader of Grupo Entre Investimentos and one of the main providers of financial shielding and capital laundering services for the criminal organization attributed to Roberto Augusto Leme da Silva, “Beto Louco,” and Mohamad Hussein Mourad, known as “Primo.” Both are under investigation as members of the criminal organization.
3. According to the investigation, the betting and prize communications were filed with Coaf (Conselho de Controle de Atividades Financeiras) because they showed atypical signs and possible indicators of money laundering. Freixo appears in all 570 communications as the “winner,” which drew attention because of the unusual frequency, the volume involved, and the use of lottery outlets.
4. The prosecutors also point to a triangulation pattern: third parties placed the bets, but the prizes were transferred directly to accounts of companies linked to Freixo, such as Cactus Assessoria e Serviços Ltda. In one example cited by the investigation, a bet attributed to Patrick Saulo Alves Lacerda allegedly generated a R$ 2,389.33 prize sent to Cactus.
5. The MP says the 570 entries could have been used to disguise the origin of funds rather than reflect actual gambling winnings, describing the pattern as a possible “reciclagem do dinheiro” step. The report also notes that another Freixo company, Entre Investimentos, transferred R$ 620,000 to Quimicolor, which the investigation links to a structure involving payments for methanol allegedly diverted for fuel adulteration.

The key operational detail for high-risk payment players is the structure, not the headline number: repeated “winner” records, third-party betting activity, and prize payouts landing in related-company accounts are exactly the sort of flows compliance teams flag when reviewing gambling-adjacent transactions and broader laundering typologies.