SAO PAULO/RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Brazilian police and tax officials carried out a series of raids early on Thursday across the country targeting multibillion-dollar money laundering and fraud schemes linked to organized crime in the fuel sector, authorities said.

Multinational energy firms have struggled for years to root out organized crime from their distribution networks in Brazil, and the revenue service said this week’s crackdown related to schemes involving more than 10 billion reais ($1.84 billion) in fuel imports and 52 billion reais in domestic fuel sales.

It said another 46 billion reais in illicit financial transactions linked to the schemes had moved through fintech companies from 2020 to 2024.

“Today we launched one of the biggest operations in history against organized

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