“We are beginning to realize that these service providers, whether payment institutions themselves or intermediaries, are probably also providing services for other illegal activities,” said Regis Dudena, Secretary of Prizes and Betting, in an interview with Valor, two weeks after large-scale operations were launched to investigate organized crime in the fuel sector and money laundering through fintechs. “That’s the impression we have.”
The information collected by the SPA is shared with agencies such as the Central Bank, the Federal Police, and the Federal Revenue Service, so that each can act within its area of authority, the secretary said.
He explained that the work of the secretariat he leads is carried out on three fronts: curbing the advertising of illegal sites, “taking them down,” and “drying up” the financial flows of these businesses. The last two have direct connections with the financial sector.
In the first half of the year, the SPA “took down” 18,000 illegal betting sites. “Once we started identifying them, we also identified who the financial service providers were and which were the intermediary accounts of those providers,” he said.
Often, the secretary explained, the flow of illegal bets runs through service providers’ accounts. These accounts serve legitimate purposes, but also for a “person who may have some kind of restriction.”
These are known as “pocket accounts” or “bus accounts.” In the major operations in the fuel sector, their use to legalize organized crime’s funds was confirmed.
So far, between 300 and 400 such accounts have been identified as being used by illegal betting operations, he reported. Most are found in payment institutions (fintechs) which, due to their size, do not require authorization from the Central Bank to operate.
“What’s the main reason for this? It’s because they fly under the regulator’s supervision radar. The Central Bank wasn’t looking at them until now because, to use a term from the financial sector, they didn’t have sufficient systemic relevance,” said Dudena.
Following the mega operations and a series of hacker attacks, these institutions will now be required to request authorization from the Central Bank to continue operating. The deadline, originally set for December 2029, has been brought forward to May 2026, “in light of the involvement of organized crime in the recent attacks on financial and payment institutions,” the Central Bank reported earlier this month.
“What we know is that those who provide services for what seems to us to be illegal are probably also providing other types of services for other illegal activities,” Dudena commented.
In addition to the mapping that begins with taking down illegal betting sites, there is another instrument: the requirement that banks, fintechs, and card operators develop methodologies to identify unauthorized betting. This is mandated by the law regulating betting in Brazil. “Here, we have teeth,” emphasized the secretary.
“If we can ensure that all financial and payment institutions and arrangers stop providing services to betting houses, they won’t be able to make money from it,” he said. “So, we cut off their financial lifeline.”
He described how institutions are able to identify suspicious accounts. “This guy here is registered as a used car salesman,” he exemplified. “But then you see lots of transfers of R$100 (US$19) late at night and think: ‘this guy isn’t a used car salesman. He’s doing something else.’”
In a case like this, institutions are required to report the situation to the SPA, stating that there are signs of an illegal betting operation. In addition, they must end their relationship with that client.
Another way institutions detect possible illegal betting activity is by monitoring low-value Pix payments before soccer matches — for example, on Wednesday nights. “You see a spike in transfers to a specific account, check it out, and it turns out to be a bakery,” he said. “In the financial sector, there’s an expression: ‘know your customer.’ That means the institution must know if that ‘bakery’ is truly a bakery.”
Reports from institutions to the SPA can point in the same direction. “I have four banks reporting the same account,” he illustrated. “So we gradually build a more solid picture of who these financial service providers are.”
If institutions fail to cooperate, the SPA can initiate proceedings. The fines can reach up to R$2 billion (US$374m). Provisional Measure (MP) 1,303, which raises taxation on betting and fintechs, also strengthens this possibility of penalties. In addition, Complementary Bill (PL) 182, which reduces tax benefits, paves the way to charge institutions for the taxes that illegal betting operations failed to collect.
According to SPA data, in the first half of this year, 24 financial and payment institutions submitted 277 reports to the SPA and closed the accounts of 255 individuals and legal entities.
On the other hand, the SPA formally requested information from 13 payment institutions, notifying them to close accounts. Forty-five accounts were shut down.
Source: Valor
