The true tally is likely much higher, said Luciano Regis, a lawyer representing dozens of victims. He said one of his clients enlisted her husband, mother, brother, sister-in-law and an 82-year-old aunt, investing a total 822,000 reais (about $150,000).
Rio state police have also linked two attempted killings to dos Santos and what they called his "extermination team." On March 20, a trader known as Nilsinho was shot while driving his BMW through Cabo Frio.
He was severely injured but survived. Three months later another firm´s operator was targeted, his car hit by 40 bullets; he also survived.
Police accuse dos Santos of ordering the hit. Less than four months later, on Aug.
4, Wesley Pessano, who advertised himself on social media as a cryptocurrency trader, was shot dead in his Porsche.
A wave of cryptocurrency-related violence soon followed. revenues rose, enriching early adopters, copycat firms sprang up, seeking to cash in on the craze. Bitcoin fervor was particularly keen in Cabo Frio, the resort town of 230,000 where G.A.S.
was based.
At the same time, Brazil´s securities regulator was making digital currencies more attractive: It authorized the country´s investment funds to invest in cryptocurrencies in 2018, giving them greater credibility.
Last year, Brazil approved Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, only the second country in the world to do so. And Rio de Janeiro has recently said it wants to offer incentives to those paying city property taxes using bitcoins.
Despite the long list of charges he faces, dos Santos represents an unlikely hero to his fervent supporters.
Many view him as a modest Black man whose unorthodox Bitcoin business made them wealthy by gaming a financial system they believe is rigged by wealthy white elites.
Prosecutors have identified at least 27,000 G.A.S. victims, with operations in at least 13 Brazilian states and seven other countries, 币安手续费 (
Visit Hkcoinguide) including the U.S., United Arab Emirates, the U.
r>and Portuga
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>And, they were assured, it was risk-free: They would get their entire initial investment back at the end of the contract. Clients were promised a 10% monthly return on their investments over 12- to 48-month contract periods, but did not own the bitcoins they were told G.A.
r>was purchasing with their mone
r>Police say dos Santos began trading in Bitcoin after leaving his job as a waiter in 201
r>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 sa
r>Police say the
company owned by 38-year-old Glaidson Acácio dos Santos had total transactions worth at least $7 billion ($38 billion reais) from 2015 through mid-2021 as part of a Bitcoin-based Ponzi scheme that promised investors 10% monthly return
r>Gilson Silva do Carmo, an alleged victim of the G.A.S Consulting & Technology, a cryptocurrency investment firm, walks off after an interview in Iguaba Grande, Brazil, Wednesday, De
r>15, 2021. Do Carmo watched in horror as the seizures and arrests unfolded; he had invested the rest of his savings in the company just weeks earlie
r>(AP Photo/Bruna Prado)
