Overview

• Spalone was detained on arrival at Buenos Aires’ Ezeiza airport after Interpol listed him at Brazil’s request, a day after Panamanian authorities had released him.
• Brazil’s Federal Police coordinated the arrest with São Paulo’s cybercrime unit and authorities in Argentina, Panama, Paraguay and the United States.
• Investigators say the scheme used an improper “Pix indireto” setup to move R$146.5 million through 607 transfers in under five hours from ten accounts, with more than R$100 million recovered and about R$39 million in losses.
• Police link Spalone to fintech-branded firms Dubai Cash and Next Trading Dubai, which allegedly operated without Central Bank authorization for direct Pix transactions as rules tightened earlier this year.
• Two other suspects, Guilherme Sateles Coelho and Jesse Mariano da Silva, were arrested in São Paulo and Campinas and are alleged to have benefited by roughly R$75 million, while Spalone’s defense contests the arrests and seeks to revoke his detention and remove the Interpol listing.