A Paraguayan court has ordered the freezing of bank accounts and digital assets belonging to four of the thirteen defendants in Operation Icarus, which is investigating the largest virtual fraud scheme ever recorded in the country. The loss to a telecommunications company amounts to G. 9.015 billion (approximately US$1.2 million).
The measure was requested by prosecutor Irma Llano of the Specialized Unit for Cybercrime and Asset Laundering and authorized by criminal guarantees judge specializing in economic crimes, Rodrigo Estigarribia. The freeze affects accounts, digital wallets, and financial products registered on the crypto-asset platform Binance in the names of Alex Junior Silva Báez (18), Sergio Javier Sosa Melgarejo (35), and two other individuals under investigation whose names have been kept confidential at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
The judge, however, did not extend the prohibition on altering the status quo to one of the accounts belonging to a defendant, nor to the other 379 Binance accounts that received the diverted funds. Despite this, he ordered the immediate preservation and safeguarding of all records, logs, metadata, and digital information linked to those accounts.
According to the court ruling, the precautionary measures cover registration and signature data (such as account creation date, associated emails, and phone numbers), connection and access data (IP addresses, geolocation, user agents), transactional data (complete history of deposits, withdrawals, and P2P transfers), and supplementary data (support tickets and communications with the platform).
So far, 478,851 USDT (a stablecoin pegged to the dollar) have been seized as part of the investigation. Prosecutor Irma Llano has also taken investigative statements from each of the identified individuals and sent official letters to financial institutions whose clients received the diverted funds in "mule accounts."
The phone company's complaint states that between March 20 and 25, 2026, Alex Silva exploited a vulnerability in the company's electronic payment system, manipulating the second command of the QR code billing transaction process. When a customer scanned the QR code, the system debited the actual amount, but the amount recorded in the merchant's wallet was altered to G. 1. The difference was diverted to the defendants' wallets.
The funds were distributed through 1,927 transactions to 395 bank accounts, using "mule farms" — individuals who lend their accounts for the operations. Alex Silva, identified as the scheme's leader, allegedly recruited friends and family members, making massive transfers of up to G. 499,000 each to avoid raising suspicion.
Of the thirteen defendants, eight are in custody. They face charges of computer-related fraud, criminal association, and money laundering in the form of frustrating asset tracing, under the Paraguayan Penal Code.