Operation Maximum Penalty had another development recently. The second phase was held in several states and the man appointed as leader of the criminal organization investigated for an alleged match-fixing scheme in matches from Series A and B of the Brazilian Championship was arrested. The information was disclosed by Estadão and published by Zero Hora.
Businessman Bruno Lopez de Moura was appointed as the alleged leader of this betting scheme, according to the Goiás Public Ministry (PM-GO). According to the newspaper, Moura, who owns BC Sport Management, which manages players, was arrested in preventive custody.
According to an excerpt from the MP-GO complaint revealed by Estadão, the criminal organization’s method would be as follows:
“This is a specialized action aimed at enticing and co-opting professional athletes (players) to, through financial consideration, ensure the practice of certain events in official football matches and, with this, guarantee success in high sports bets made by the criminal group on branch sites, such as www.bet365.com and www.betano.com”.
Operation Maximum Penalty investigates alleged match-fixing scheme in Serie A and B
In February, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Goiás began an operation to investigate an alleged scheme to manipulate the results of sports games. At first, the investigation covered only games from the second division of the 2022 Brazilian Championship.
However, the second stage began to investigate last year’s Série A matches and this year’s State Championship matches. The second phase of the investigation took place on April 18. In all, three preventive arrest warrants and 20 search and seizure warrants were served in 16 municipalities in six states.
It is worth mentioning that the Maximum Penalty Operation reverberated in the National Congress, accelerating the regulation process of the sports betting sector in Brazil and generating requests for the opening of a sports betting CPI. The mayor, Arthur Lira, stated that he will install the CPI this week.
