Brazil’s Federal Police confiscated roughly 71 million Brazilian reais, approximately $14 million, in cryptocurrency tied to criminal activity in 2025. That figure represents a sixfold jump compared to seizures in 2024, signaling that law enforcement is getting more aggressive about chasing digital money trails.

Analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that around 505 billion reais, roughly $100 billion, in crypto value circulated through Brazil in 2025. The seized funds amount to about 0.014% of total transaction volume.

The cases driving the crackdown

One of the biggest cases involved a hack of Brazil’s banking system that exploited Pix, the country’s wildly popular instant payment platform. The attackers used a…