During a search and seizure of the home of a suspected organized crime money launderer in the city of Curitiba, capital of the Brazilian state of Parana, federal police agents discovered nearly three million euros hidden in a wall. The owner of the house, a well-known businessman in the city, was arrested red-handed.
The US currency money was divided into several closed bags, opaque and transparent, hidden in a false wall with a hollow bottom.
After demolishing the wall that hid the cache, agents discovered hidden treasure, the origin of which could not be explained by the owner of a house in the Bariga area.
Agents delivered a mountain of bundles of dollars to a branch of Caixa Económica Federal, CEF, one of the state-owned banks in Brazil. An initial estimate, based on the contents of some of the parcels, put the total value at more than three million euros, but the exact amount will only be known once bank officials have finished counting.
The man arrested in the operation owns transport, construction and rental companies for heavy equipment used in the construction industry. According to the Federal Police, the businessman used his companies to launder money of illicit origin, mainly obtained as a result of large-scale drug trafficking.