Cell phone case shop moved R$ 50 million from trafficking proceeds, says Rio de Janeiro prosecutors; owner arrested

Bárbara Luzia Souza de Carvalho was arrested in Operation Hawala, and prosecutors say the money-laundering network she was part of moved more than R$ 100 million in 3 years. For PSPs and acquirers, the useful detail is not the cell phone cases — it is the structure: shell companies, fake retail, cross-state activity, and cash fragmentation to push drug money through the rails.

1. Alongside Bárbara Luzia, 9 other people were arrested, including Lebanese brothers Reda, Yasser and Kassem Zayoun, whom investigators identified as responsible for the group’s interstate and international financial expansion.
2. The force task says the laundering scheme did not distinguish between criminal factions and also hid funds linked to Comando Vermelho (CV) and Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). The group used shell companies that sold counterfeit goods and stolen electronics.
3. Agents from the Delegacia de Defesa dos Serviços Delegados (DDSD), with support from the Coordenadoria de Recursos Especiais (Core), and prosecutors from Gaeco/MPRJ executed 37 search-and-seizure warrants in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Foz do Iguaçu.
4. The 3rd Specialized Court for Criminal Organizations of the Rio de Janeiro Court also ordered precautionary measures freezing financial assets and blocking property and corporate holdings. Gaeco indicted 22 people in total, and Judge Alexandre Abrahão Dias Teixeira accepted the complaint in full, making all of them defendants.
5. The investigation started at the Delegacia de Repressão aos Crimes contra a Propriedade Imaterial (DRCPIM), which found a “multibrand” business based in Complexo do São Carlos and linked to the leadership of Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP). It allegedly sold counterfeit items and received stolen electronics; Bárbara Luzia was listed as the owner of Babe Cell and as the wife of the multibrand owner.

Investigators say they traced dozens of shell companies across different states and a use of smurfing, meaning split cash deposits designed to get around monitoring systems. They also identified a commercial relationship between a company linked to the suspects and Egyptian national Haytham Ahmad Shukri, who is under U.S. government investigation for ties to Al-Qaeda, although officer Pedro Brasil said the link is still “raw” and not yet confirmed.