'Pharaoh of bitcoins' states in testimony that fortune in cryptocurrencies can pay creditors

Four years after his arrest, Glaidson Acácio dos Santos, known as the 'bitcoin pharaoh', stated in a statement to the Court that wealth stored in a cryptocurrency wallet can pay creditors.

"It's there. It's all there," said Glaidson during the statement made in 2025, obtained by Fantástico, from TV Globo, and shown this Sunday (6). The fortune in cryptocurrencies would be stored on a device seized by the Federal Police.

A cryptocurrency wallet (or crypto wallet) is a software, application or physical device that stores the cryptographic keys that allow you to access and move your cryptocurrencies.

From a poor background, Glaidson, creator of GAS Consultoria Bitcoin, was arrested by the Federal Police of Rio de Janeiro in August 2021, in operation Kryptos, an action by the Rio PF.

According to the police, the company based in the Lagos region would be involved in a financial pyramid scheme and would have generated billion-dollar amounts in partnership with other firms specializing in cryptocurrencies.

Over nine years, the structure created by the former waiter and former pastor of the Universal Church and his collaborators attracted more than 67 thousand customers in 13 states in Brazil and in seven other countries.

For the Federal Public Ministry, it is a criminal organization committed to the crimes of maintaining a financial institution without authorization, fraudulent management and irregular trading of securities.

The suspicion is that the income from investments in cryptocurrencies was not enough to support the return promised by Glaidson. The scheme, according to the MPF, depended on deposits from new customers to fulfill the agreement with old ones.

During his testimony in court, Glaidson stated that the amount stored in the wallet would be enough to pay all his creditors. "The password, I don't know it off the top of my head. But it's there. It's all there," he said.

Glaidson also said that the accusations made against him were not true.

"These accusations are untrue about me. I did not commit any crime, from my point of view. I think it was very hasty on the part of me to stop my company's activity", he stated in his statement.

Glaidson came to work as a pastor at Universal in Venezuela, where he met his wife, Mirelis Zerpa, arrested in 2024 in the United States and deported to Brazil last year. She is suspected of being the intellectual mastermind of the scheme, having worked in the cryptocurrency market in Venezuela and being mentioned in internet forums as an organizer of financial pyramids.

Upon returning to Brazil, Glaidson worked as a waiter in kiosks in Cabo Frio and at a resort in Búzios, a neighboring resort. He states that he started investing in cryptocurrencies and attracting clients in 2012 — most of them co-workers, former pastors and Universal faithful.

The first record of transactions in this market observed in the investigations is from December 2014, when he opened an account with Foxbit, a cryptocurrency broker.