A judge issued the warrant last Monday, saying Lima was suspected of links to illegal online gambling.
A spokesperson for the singer, whose real name is Nivaldo Batista Lima, described the warrant as "unjust and without legal grounds", adding that "the artist's innocence will be duly proven", and the arrest order was overturned a day later.
But the attempt to arrest a star with 13 million monthly listeners on Spotify dominated local news headlines - and cast a spotlight on how a sudden boom in unregulated online gambling has become a growing criminal headache and public health crisis for Brazil.
Online gambling companies have grown exponentially since the Covid pandemic, many of them with links to international companies and local criminal groups.
New rules to regulate online gambling will come into force on 1 January, but experts warn that the regulations will be insufficient to combat what many are calling Brazil's "epidemic" of online gambling addiction.
A series of recent studies have laid bare the scale of the problem: in addition to getting into debt, more Brazilians are using money they would have spent on entertainment or even food to bet online, and growing numbers are dropping out of applying to university for the same reason.
This story is from the October 04, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the October 04, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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