Brazilian police bust ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ crime ring in Lisbon

LISBON –

Brazilian police and the Portuguese department of Interpol have dismantled a felony community working a sham firm in Lisbon that defrauded hundreds of Brazilians in a scheme impressed by the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

In an announcement, Brazilian police stated a Czech nationwide primarily based in Lisbon had opened a name centre and employed lots of of struggling Brazilian employees dwelling within the Portuguese capital.

They had been tasked with calling individuals in Brazil and convincing them to put money into shares. The victims’ cash ended up in firm accounts whereas they had been advised it had been misplaced available in the market.

“Due to despair … they were encouraged to make new investments in the hope of reversing the loss,” police chief Eric Sallum stated. “It turns out the new investments also generated losses, creating a snowball.”

The investigation discovered the group had been working for no less than 4 years, affecting hundreds of individuals, a lot of whom misplaced their life financial savings, and making hundreds of thousands in Brazilian reais.

Six leaders of the community had been arrested to face fraud and money-laundering expenses, financial institution accounts had been frozen and a number of other pretend web sites had been taken down.

There was a “sociopathic atmosphere” on the name centre, which police stated mimicked the 2013 blockbuster “The Wolf of Wall Street,” primarily based on the memoir of Jordan Belfort, who ended up in jail within the Nineties for defrauding buyers out of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}.

Workers had been inspired to observe the film and replicate the behaviour of the primary character performed by Leonardo Di Caprio.

“The motto at the company was: think of yourselves and your families, forget the victims,” stated Sallum.

(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Additional reporting by Gabriel Araujo in Sao Paulo; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Mark Potter)