Taxinexo: the self-driving taxi scheme that stopped paying

Taxinexo presented itself as an autonomous taxi company operating in the United States and offered Brazilians a "flexible investment model" tied to the fleet. Participants "rented" a self-driving car through the app and received a daily return on the vehicle's supposed earnings in cities such as Austin, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Washington and San Francisco. The dashboard displayed each car's performance, and withdrawals were paid out via Pix within 72 hours.

Since early September 2026, withdrawals have gone unpaid. The platform began displaying a message asking users to cooperate in completing a "tax verification process," warning that funds could otherwise be frozen, according to reporting by InfoNewss, of Picos (Piauí). On September 28, a couple from Cabreúva (São Paulo) filed a police report for fraud after their withdrawals were blocked, according to Jornal da Região; the two had sent R$ 1,504 via Pix. Investors have also been reported in Piauí and Pernambuco. As of October 2, 2026, Reclame Aqui listed 757 complaints against the brand.

The playbook, as the reporting describes it

The entry contract cost R$ 76 and paid roughly R$ 8 a day for 18 days. In September 2026, the catalog ran from R$ 105 to R$ 15,500, with 49-day cycles and advertised "profits" of 515% to 525%; in June, it ran from R$ 65 to R$ 1,550. The catalog was repriced over time. The minimum withdrawal was R$ 20, with a 6% fee. As of August 23, 2026, withdrawals became contingent on making a new deposit.

The platform paid for recruitment: 20% on the recruit's deposit, according to an affiliate in a video, and commissions across six referral tiers (8%, 2%, 1%, 0.3%, 0.2% and 0.1%), according to the pinned post on an affiliate channel. Paying commission on the deposits of the people you recruit is the signature of a pyramid scheme.

Social proof was manufactured in bulk. The official channel published, in pairs and on the same day, a "part-time employment contract" with Taxinexo as the employer alongside a Pix payment receipt: apparent employment and apparent payment. There were hundreds of such contracts between May and September 2026. They prove the document was published, not that the employment relationship ever existed.

The app's reviews on Google Play tell the ending: in August 2026, 9 complaints out of 48 reviews; in September, 104 out of 135, including "the pyramid collapsed," on September 17.

The companies in Brazil

Victims' Pix transfers landed in the accounts of companies incorporated in Brazil for exactly that purpose. The first, TAXINEXO COMPANHIA DE INTELIGENCIA ARTIFICIAL AUTOMOTIVA LTDA (CNPJ 65.510.953/0001-45), was incorporated in Curitiba on March 5, 2026, and dissolved on July 7, 2026; it is the "Curitiba branch" announced in a paid piece in Jornal de Brasília. The second, TAXINEXO INTELIGENCIA ARTIFICIAL AUTOMOBILISTICA LTDA (CNPJ 67.702.335/0001-22), was incorporated in São Paulo on June 24, 2026, and was still active with the Receita Federal as of October 2, 2026. The contracts published on the channel continued to carry the old CNPJ until July 25, eighteen days after that entity was dissolved.

CyberX's investigation also identified payment gateways that processed transactions for the scheme. Those names are being withheld from this page while the investigation continues.

Where the kit came from

Based on CyberX's investigation, Taxinexo has ties to Chinese-origin scam operations. The app was published on Google Play by the same developer account that previously published RisetCar, an earlier version of the same kit aimed at Indonesia: RisetCar was pulled from the store on January 2, 2026, and Taxinexo went up the next day. The main site, taxinexo.com, and br-taxiexo.com were registered in the same second, on December 16, 2025; the Internet Archive snapshot of the site shows a title in Indonesian, a navigation notice in Chinese, and stylesheet files named after Waymo One, a real autonomous taxi service with no connection to Taxinexo. The brand's Telegram channel has existed since April 2025. Recruitment in Brazil was handled by Brazilian affiliates, and the network is not wedded to any single product: as of October 2, 2026, one Taxinexo affiliate channel on Telegram had been renamed and was now promoting Winvest, another daily-return platform. The operator has not been identified.

As of October 2, 2026, the platform's domains were offline and the iPhone app was no longer listed on the App Store. The Android app was still on Google Play, with more than 100,000 downloads, and the @taxinexo channel on Telegram had 14,043 subscribers.

What the sources support, and what they do not

They support the following: that the platform promised returns from autonomous taxis, paid commissions on recruits' deposits, and stopped paying withdrawals in September 2026; that it conditioned the release of funds on a "tax verification" and on new deposits; that it collected payments under the names of two companies registered in Brazil in 2026, one already dissolved; and that there is a police report for fraud in São Paulo and hundreds of public complaints. They do not support the following: who operates the platform, how much was raised in total, or that the companies' registered partners are the people behind the scheme. As of October 2, 2026, we found no CVM action nor any Diário Oficial publication naming the brand. No individual is named here.

If you were caught up in it

Do not pay the "tax verification," do not make a new deposit, and do not pay a fee to unlock a withdrawal: none of it will release your money. File a police report with your receipts, screenshots of the dashboard and the chat logs, and include the CNPJ that received your Pix. Ask your bank to open a Mecanismo Especial de Devolução (MED) claim as soon as possible. If you sent crypto, CyberX's wallet lookup is free and shows what is publicly known about where the funds went. Keep a record of the date, amount and destination of every transfer.