Key facts:
The Federal Public prosecutor’s office denounced José Edivan Felix, former mayor of Catingueira.The defendant already is serving 40 years in prison for fraud and embezzlement of public funds.The Public Ministry of Brazil accused the former mayor of Catingueira, José Edivan Felix, for being involved in an alleged money-laundering scheme using cryptocurrencies as bitcoin and megacoin. The record of the prosecution occurs while Edivan Felix meets a sentence of 40 years in prison for committing fraud and embezzlement of public funds by the order of the 7.700.000 million reais, or 1.75 million dólares.De according to the authorities, the mayor would have money laundering with cryptocurrencies up to nine times so that it now faces a new judicial process that, in the event of being found guilty, he would receive a sentence of between three to 10 additional years in prison, plus payment of fines for each crime committed, according to according to published local media.The prosecution argues that Edivan Felix concealed the property of several of his assets by placing them to third parties. In addition, would using cryptocurrencies to the acquisition and sale of vehicles through trading companies.The complaint includes two cases in which the defendant would have delivered two cars to trade in for cash and part of your income should be invested in bitcoin and megacoin. These operations would have been by 29,000 brazilian real, that is to say, about 6,600 us dollars.”The business model consisted, in summary, payments made by the participants, who, in addition to paying an initial fee, also paid monthly fees and made withdrawals of dividends in cryptocurrencies”, highlighted in the web site of Paraiba Online.The investigation against the former mayor is part of an operation called Recidivism in the prosecution forward inquiries against local mayors for alleged acts of corruption. The sentence of 40 years in prison for Edivan Felix was issued in August 2019.On the use of bitcoin for money laundering, an investigation of the signature Messari pointed out that the dollar is used 800 times more than bitcoin in the money laundering in the dark red. Another point to note is that bitcoin represents only 2% of the total of liquid assets in the world market.