Crypto Business Expert Shot Dead at a Brazilian Airport

By Sophie Ritzenthaler

A crypto businessman that was tied to one of Brazil’s most powerful criminal groups was shot dead at the Guarulhos Airport in São Paulo on Friday. Three other individuals were injured in the shooting when five assailants opened fire on businessman Antônio Vinicius Gritzbach’s car. The apparent assassination was clearly a targeted attack for gang related reasons. The airport confirmed that police and medical teams were immediately alerted to respond to the scene. Gritzbach had recently taken a plea bargain from local prosecutors, providing information about Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and according to local media, he received death threats from the criminal group in return. Reports in the Brazilian media suggest that the businessman was considered a key player in the operations of the gang. 

As a cryptocurrency expert, the information he was providing through his plea bargain was regarding how he had helped the group launder millions of dollars. As another part of Gritzbach’s plea deal he was going to aid officials and investigators in locating members of the group as well as hand over documents in his possession. The PCC was formed in the 1990s and has become one of Brazil’s most dangerous drug gangs, but members are not confined to Latin America. In recent years, the group has expanded, forming alliances with partners including Bolivian cocaine producers and Italian mafiosi. A security report out of Portugal suggested that in the last year, the group had around 1,000 associates in the country’s capital city of Lisbon. The group controls one of South America’s most important trafficking routes that links Bolivia and Brazil to Africa and Europe.  In 2023, São Paulo’s organized crime taskforce estimated that the PCC makes almost $1 billion from international cocaine trafficking.