The São Paulo Public Ministry (MPSP) requested the closure of the investigation against the Blaze platform. The investigation began after a bettor stated that he was unable to claim a prize of R$269,000.
He reported that the “Finish” button on the website did not work, preventing him from receiving the amount.
After Blaze‘s defense in August, the Attorney General’s Office asked for investigations to be included in gaming crimes, embezzlement and crimes against the popular economy. Thus, the Public Ministry highlighted that Law 14,790/2023, sanctioned in December, regulates fixed odds betting, including the modality explored by Blaze.
Court clears Blaze of money laundering charges
The representative of the Public Ministry highlighted that the first investigations did not find “evidence” of the crimes of embezzlement and picardism. Therefore, he requested the closure of the police investigation due to the lack of “valid reason justifying the continuation of the criminal investigation”.
Lawyers Leonardo Magalhães Avelar and Luiz Felipe Maia defended the Blaze betting platform, sponsor of Santos Futebol Clube.
According to lawyer Leonardo Avelar, “The Court of Justice and the Attorney General’s Office had already decided that there was no default on the part of the company.
The latest archiving request made by the MP puts an end to the police investigation. This is an important position to provide legal certainty to the entire betting market in Brazil.”
Thus, at the end of July, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Specialized Money Laundering Court had ordered the suspension of the investigation that investigated, in the 2nd Court of Tax Crimes, Criminal Organization and Asset and Securities Laundering of São Paulo, the complaint of the same player.
This complaint alleged that the platform was a criminal organization or involved in money laundering. “In the current investigation, police authorities did not indicate which money laundering crimes had already been clearly disclosed and did not include data in the process to classify Blaze.com as a criminal organization,” the prosecutor stated in the document.
In the same document, the prosecutor ordered the closure of investigations into the two crimes.
