In Cabo Frio, dos Santos' success inspired other budding entrepreneurs to follow in his footsteps - not to mention those of Charles Ponzi, who died nearby in a Rio de Janeiro hospital charity ward in 1949.
The Italian immigrant who engineered one of the largest scams in U.S. history in the 1920s was buried in a public Rio cemetery with his last $75.
Police say dos Santos began trading in Bitcoin after leaving his job as a waiter in 2014.
A one-time evangelical preacher in training, he enlisted clients from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Brazil´s largest neo-Pentecostal group, who earned a referral fee for bringing in fresh recruits and kicking back money to G.A.S., police documents say.
CABO FRIO, Brazil (AP) - In April,
Brazil's federal police stormed the helipad of a boutique seaside hotel in Rio de Janeiro state, where they busted two men and a woman loading a chopper with 7 million reais ($1.3 million) in neatly packed bills.
In hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Associated Press, federal and state police and prosecutors accuse dos Santos and his associates of running a sophisticated racket defrauding thousands of small-scale investors who believed they were getting rich off Bitcoin´s steep appreciation. He is now in a Rio jail awaiting trial on charges including racketeering, financial crimes and ordering the murder and attempted murder of two business competitors.
He remains under investigation in the attempted murder of a third competitor.
25, alerted that dos Santos was planning to flee Brazil, federal police raided more than a dozen locations linked to G.A.S., including dos Santos' home where he was found with 13.8 million reais ($2.5 million) and taken into custody.
Agents also found hard drives containing 10 times that amount in Bitcoin, gold bars, jewelry and several sports cars, including a white Porsche Panamera and an electric blue BMW Z4 convertible.
Cabo Frio, the home of G.A.S. As revenues rose for the cryptocurrency investment firm G.A.S Consulting & Technology, enriching some early adopters, copycat firms sprang up, seeking to cash in on the craze.
Beachgoers congregate on Fort Beach in Cabo Frio, Brazil, Wednesday, Dec.
15, 2021. As revenues rose for the cryptocurrency investment firm G.A.S Consulting & Technology, enriching some early adopters, copycat firms sprang up, seeking to cash in on the craze. Cabo Frio, the home of G.A.S. Cabo Frio, the home of G.A.S.
revenues rose, enriching early adopters, copycat firms sprang up, seeking to cash in on the craze. A wave of cryptocurrency-related violence soon followed. Bitcoin fervor was particularly keen in Cabo Frio,
交易手续费 the resort town of 230,000 where G.A.
r>was base
r>The chubby young man in thick-rimmed glasses was also gaining a taste for the high life, police and prosecutors sai
r>Dos Santos bought expensive jewelry and a swanky apartment as contracts poured in from elsewhere in Latin America and as far away as the U.S., Europe and the Gul
r>Do Carmo invested 40,000 reais ($7,000) - just over half the money left in his retirement fund. Then his therapist told him he sold his house to invest in G.A.S., and had been receiving 10% monthly returns for a yea
r>
The alleged scheme worked like this, according to prosecutors: Dos Santos would instruct clients to deposit their money - in cash to avoid further scrutiny - into bank accounts run by managing partner
r>The money would then be transferred to dos Santos or his Venezuelan wife, Mirelis Yoseline Diaz Zerpa, who would either pocket it, use it to buy bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies as well as traditional financial assets, or pay off other members of the scheme.