Brasília, November 18th, 2010
108 days after the Federal Revenue of Brazil executed the greatest seizure operation in its history, 3,660 property retention forms were issued for the articles, most of which were forgery. The most common articles include about 410,000 cell phones and 460,000 glasses of Chinese origin. One of the importing companies alone had to bear a loss of about R$ 8 million in seized merchandise. The original articles include a cargo of memory cards for laptops, estimated in R$ 500,000.
These impressive figures are the result of the operation Leão Expresso 2010 from the Federal Revenue, executed with the support from the Brazilian Post and Telegraph Corporation ( Correios ), between July 14th and late October, in the capital of São Paulo. After a thorough search in the express shipment sector, which is intended for the import of articles for their own consumption up to US$ 3,000 (and import tax of 60%), several fraud and import crimes were detected, including under-invoicing, false declaration of content and piracy.
Fraud - In certain cargoes, with hundreds of Chinese cell phones, the declaration of under-invoice commercial values (inferior to US$ 200) was common. Instead of fully assembled cell phones, spare parts and pieces were declared. In addition, the smugglers almost always acquired forged articles from known trademarks. According to a commercial representative from the forged trademark, this is the largest seizure of the trademark concerned in the world, in one single operation.
Leão Expresso – That is the name for the operations which are constantly carried out by the Federal Revenue at the Correios nationwide. By late June, the Federal Revenue had already seized R$ 25 million in merchandise in Rio de Janeiro. After that substantial seizure, the smugglers sought new routes to offload their merchandise. What they were not aware of, however, it that this move was being monitored in São Paulo, where a massive, outbound operation was being prepared to be broken out, without any publicity, from July on.
This allowed the seizure of great volumes of merchandise that would be sent to 130 companies and individuals from all over the country. During the block of the smugglers’ logistic structure, the Federal Revenue was also able to monitor traditional false cell phone retail outlets in the Capital, in search for evidence of shortage of supply.
Penal Repercussion - From now on, all that evidence and the list of 130 companies and individuals will be forwarded to the Federal Public Prosecutor, who has the competence to file the lawsuit for smuggling and embezzlement, subject to 1 to 4 years imprisonment.
Operation Remessa Legal 2010 (Description by type of merchandise, listing quantities and values)
| Volume | Units | Total Amount | Description of the Merchandise | Average Amount/Volume | |
| 409,865 | R$ 89,713,800 | Cell phone | |||
| 459,158 | R$ 11,223,468 | Glasses | |||
| 131,603 | R$ 9,234,205 | Watches | |||
| 44,223 | R$ 3,047,370 | MP3/MP4 players | |||
| 9,726 | R$ 2,933,110 | GPS | |||
| 58,461 | R$ 2,368,230 | Memory cards | |||
| 23,667 | R$ 1,602,070 | Cameras | |||
| 2,475,802 | R$ 15,340,005 | Other | |||
| TOTAL | 3,660 | 3,612,505 | R$ 135,462,258 | R$ 37,011.55 |
Number of officers: 35
Quantity of days: 108 (14/07 - 29/10)
Entities and Individuals involved: 130
Total volumes seized: 3,660
Average value of the volumes: R$ 37,000
Total articles seized: 3.612 million
Total amount of the seizure: R$ 135.46 million
Ascom/RFB Press Coordination