Rio de Janeiro operation targets drug-money laundering network and alleged Al-Qaeda link

Rio de Janeiro Civil Police and the Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor’s Office launched Operation Hawala on Wednesday (15) against a money-laundering scheme that moved at least R$ 100 million from drug trafficking. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks serving higher-risk flows, the useful part is not the police theatrics; it is the mechanics: shell companies, layered transfers, cash structuring, and cross-border movement across multiple Brazilian states.

1. Police said the operation identified a possible connection to a member of a financing structure linked to Al-Qaeda. The investigation also says the scheme provided services to Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP) and concealed funds linked to Comando Vermelho (CV) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC).
2. Officers from the Delegacia de Defesa dos Serviços Delegados (DDSD), with support from the Coordenadoria de Recursos Especiais (Core), and prosecutors from Gaeco/MPRJ served 10 arrest warrants and 37 search-and-seizure warrants in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Foz do Iguaçu.
3. The 3rd Specialized Criminal Organization Court of the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice also imposed precautionary measures freezing financial assets and making assets and corporate equity interests unavailable. Gaeco filed charges against 22 people, and judge Alexandre Abrahão Dias Teixeira accepted the complaint in full, making all of them defendants.
4. According to investigators, the structure operated between 2021 and 2024 and moved more than R$ 100 million through dozens of shell companies spread across different states. Police said those businesses were used to give a veneer of legitimacy to money from drug trafficking, aggravated receiving of stolen goods, and the sale of counterfeit products.
5. The money trail allegedly relied on shell companies, successive transfers between legal entities, cash deposits split into smaller amounts, nominees used to move funds through bank accounts, and transactions inconsistent with the declared financial capacity of the parties involved. Police also identified a group of Lebanese-origin businessmen said to have expanded the interstate and international circulation of the illicit proceeds.