Brazilian Court Authorizes NFT Subpoenas in $900M Bitcoin Fraud Case

A Brazilian court has authorized the use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a legal mechanism to serve subpoenas to unidentified Bitcoin wallet holders connected to the BWA Brazil fraud case.

The ruling allows court-appointed trustees to mint NFTs containing legal documents and send them directly to blockchain addresses associated with approximately 11,200 BTC—valued at over $900 million at current prices—allegedly acquired using funds from defrauded investors.

"Creditors who suffered multimillion-dollar losses cannot be further harmed by legislative delays in keeping up with technological innovation," stated the court ruling, which received support from Brazil's Public Prosecutor's Office.

BWA Brazil, founded in 2017 by Paulo Roberto Ramos Bilibio, marketed itself as an investment firm offering Bitcoin exposure with 5% fixed monthly returns. The operation collapsed in early 2020, freezing withdrawals and leaving customers with estimated losses of R$300 million (approximately $52.2 million), making it one of Brazil's largest crypto pyramid schemes.

Although the company initially received approval for judicial recovery in July 2020, claiming it would reimburse clients, the court converted the process to bankruptcy less than a year later after determining the firm made no restitution efforts.

The alleged perpetrators, Bilibio and partner Jessica da Silva Farias, remain at large after reportedly using customer funds to purchase Bitcoin. While authorities may identify some beneficiaries through Brazilian exchanges required to report transactions to the Federal Revenue Service, peer-to-peer transfers present significant identification challenges—which led to the court approving this blockchain-based notification method.