Data pulled from an iCloud backup played a key role in uncovering a $320M money laundering scheme in Brazil, leading to the arrests of several influencers and musicians. Here are the details.
iCloud backup from unrelated investigation leads to fresh arrests
Last October, Brazilian federal police (PF) arrested accountant Rodrigo Morgado during an investigation into alleged money laundering and international drug trafficking.
As part of the operation, investigators gained access to Morgado’s iCloud backup, which helped uncover a separate alleged $320 million money laundering scheme and led to 39 arrest warrants, plus 45 search and seizure orders across eight states and the federal district.
Among those arrested were musicians MC Ryan SP and MC Poze do Rodo, along with two influencers with a combined 42 million Instagram followers.
According to G1, the list of alleged crimes from the new investigation includes “illegal bets, clandestine raffles, international drug trafficking, front companies, proxies, crypto, and overseas transfers.”
G1 also says accountant Rodrigo “placed great confidence in iCloud’s security, which ended up allowing federal police to map the entire organization.”
With the new arrests, Brazilian authorities have issued another round of warrants for cloud accounts, including iCloud and Google Drive, as well as for data stored on devices seized during the operation.
As a reminder, Apple, like other tech companies, regularly complies with government warrants around the world, as long as authorities “follow applicable laws and statutes when requesting customer information and data.“
The company publishes details on how it handles these requests through its Transparency Report hub, which you can read more about here.
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