The members of the Judiciary understood that there are no indications of money laundering through sports betting by some of the investigated, including the singer Gusttavo Lima.
Brazil.- The Public Ministry (MP) of Pernambuco requested the filing of part of the process of the Operation Integration due to lack of concrete evidence of the action. The MP asks to close the investigation against the singer Gusttavo Lima within the framework of Operation Integration, which investigates alleged money laundering through illegal betting. The statement occurs amid frictions between the prosecutors and the judge responsible for the case. The five prosecutors in charge of the case state, in their opinion, that there are no indications of crimes of money laundering and criminal association committed by the singer and the couple José André da Rocha Neto (owner of the company VaideBet) and Aislla Rocha.
The statement occurs once the deadline set by judge Andréa Calado da Cruz, of the first instance of the Court of Justice of Pernambuco, for the Public Ministry to decide whether to indict some of the investigated or not.
According to the MP, the Civil Police of Pernambuco started from the assumption that, just like the Jogo do Bicho, a criminal offense operated through Banca Caminho da Sorte, the bets promoted by Esportes da Sorte also constitute a criminal offense, due to the lack of regulation by the Ministry of Finance of the laws that deal with these bets.
One of the excerpts from the decision states that “the Public Ministry of Pernambuco requests the filing of the investigation in relation to behaviors considered a crime of money laundering, which have as a criminal type the indication of the practice of sports betting and online games promoted by Sports da Sorte, due to lack of just cause for the exercise of criminal action, due to atypical conduct”.
The MP also asks judge Andréa Calado da Cruz to refrain from granting precautionary measures requested by the police with a “generic accusation” that the values for which blockages are requested come from the criminal offense of illegal games of Esportes da Sorte, which the judge has been deciding on this type of complaints without the prior hearing of the Public Ministry, holder of the criminal action.
In the statement, the Public Ministry details the payment for the transaction of the aircraft between Gusttavo Lima (Nivaldo Batista Lima) and Darwin Henrique da Silva Filho and concludes that there was no crime and explains that the police itself recognizes the cancellation of the transaction.
“As recognized by the Police Authority itself, shortly after the digital signing of the dismissal, the total return of the values received by the company Balada Eventos e Produções Ltda occurred. These unique circumstances were the reason for the inclusion of Nivaldo Batista Lima in the investigation and led to restrictive property measures against him and his company Balada Eventos e Produções Ltda”, it records.
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The MP also points out the incompetence of the Court of Justice of Pernambuco in the investigation concerning the couple José André da Rocha Neto, owner of VaideBet, and his wife, Aislla Rocha. “In the event that procedural norms succumb to interpretative creativity, a circumstance incompatible with criminal law, and, in this way, the 12th Criminal Court of Recife is constituted as a universal court to investigate money laundering resulting from betting, in the understanding of this body, at least until now, there is no just cause to initiate criminal actions in relation to the investigated whose companies are headquartered in the State of Paraíba”, the prosecutors affirm.
In the end, the Public Ministry requests the filing of the investigation in relation to the investigated Nivaldo Batista Lima (Gusttavo Lima), José André da Rocha Neto, Aislla Sabrina Truta Henriques Rocha, Thiago Lima Rocha, and Rayssa Ferreira Santana Rocha, for the charges in the crimes of money laundering and criminal association “in the absence of elements that demonstrate that the values of the suspicious operations indicated in them have their origin in a criminal offense, and due to the absolute lack of correlation between these movements and the investigated Darwin Henrique da Silva Filho”.
