Justice of São Paulo to try case of CCP drug dealer’s sister accused of laundering money with Bitcoin

The Superior Court of Justice has decided that the Justice of São Paulo will be responsible for judging the case of the sister of a member of the criminal group Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) accused of laundering money with Bitcoin. The matter was published by LiveCoins.

According to the decision, published on Monday in the Diário Oficial de Justiça and signed by Minister Felix Fischer, the crimes of which the defendant is accused must be tried by the State Courts.

The investigation was opened by the Civil Police of Campinas (SP), which after concluding the investigation sent the case to State Justice. The latter, however, claimed that the case would fall within the jurisdiction of the federal sphere, as these were crimes against the national financial system and the popular economy. The imbroglio was only resolved by the STJ with this Monday’s decision.

The CCP member’s sister would have opened a company to raise money and invest in Bitcoin and other cryptomoreds in order to hide the funds from the drug trade.

Minister Felix Fischer based the decision on Precedent 498 of the Supreme Court, thus deciding that „it is up to the Justice of the States, in both instances, to prosecute and try the crimes against the popular economy.

The magistrate also argued that crimes of this kind should only be tried by the Federal Court when there is clear damage to goods, services or interests of the Union. According to him, this is not the case in question:

„In the absence of evidence, for the time being, of a crime of federal jurisdiction, the inquisitive procedure should continue in the State Justice, in order to investigate the practice of other offences, including larceny and crime against the popular economy“.

As reported by Cointelegraph Brasil, in August the São Paulo Civil Police began investigating whether the CCP was using an exchange of cryptomotes to launder its criminal funds.