Mastermind of Brazilian Crypto Scheme Sentenced to 128 Years
Brazilian authorities have delivered a historic sentence in one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency fraud cases.
Joel Ferreira de Souza has been sentenced to 128 years in prison for his role in laundering funds tied to Braiscompany, a collapsed Ponzi-style crypto investment scheme that ran from 2018 to 2023.
Operating under the guise of a legitimate blockchain firm, Braiscompany attracted over 20,000 investors with monthly return promises of 8%.
Behind the scenes, funds were funneled through a complex network of shell companies and proxy accounts — a system de Souza was found to have managed. Losses are estimated at over $190 million.
Other key players also faced steep penalties. De Souza’s son received 15 years, while top recruiter Gesana Rayane Silva was sentenced to nearly 28 years, bringing her combined convictions to over 40.
Meanwhile, the scheme’s founders, Antônio “Neto” Ais and Fabrícia Farias Campos, were arrested in Argentina after over a year on the run and sentenced earlier in 2024 to 88 and 62 years, respectively.
By early 2023, payments to investors had all but stopped. The collapse triggered Operation Halving — a national investigation that uncovered the scheme’s scale and led to raids, arrests, and legal action against its architects. The latest sentence, focusing on the laundering side of the operation, underscores Brazil’s growing crackdown on crypto-related financial crimes.
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
