Source: Diário do Pará Online, 28/06/2009

The smuggling of drinks, clothes, shoes, appliances, trinkets and everything that is currently on display with street vendors, mainly, is an old acquaintance from Pará. Before the Belém-Brasília highway, this habit proliferated as an important occurrence, supplying the North of the country with products of necessity that, coming by law, aviation or sea, paid extremely high taxes and prevented their commercialization for the people. Only the elite had access. Even the middle class could not afford a good bottle of whiskey, for example. Thus, the resource was to bring everything that was needed irregularly and avoid taxes.

With the opening of Belém-Brasília and the expansion of federal inspection, the exercise of irregular commercial activity ended or decreased significantly. Studies carried out by university students who presented theses at the end of the course in the 80s and 90s of the last century reached this conclusion. In other works carried out, including by federal agencies, such as the IBGE, it is possible to highlight that a new type of contraband appears in the 90s, after 1994, with the emergence of the Real and inflationary stability. Articles called R $ 1,99 appear, flooding trade in all parts of the country.

They are products brought from Asia, mainly from China, which emerges as an industrial pole, producing on a large scale and at very low prices. In fact, very low. During this period, farm inspections practically disappeared, mainly with the support of the Federal Police. The country started to lose foreign exchange on a large scale and the new smugglers are getting rich.

At the beginning of the 1,99st century, there was the expansion of the computer and the use of media on a large scale. CD, DVD and computer tools started to seduce this type of illegal trade. Famous, counterfeit brands from Asia also began to invade Brazilian trade and, therefore, the Amazon. With a thorough analysis, after research in the media and other sources, it is concluded that, since the appearance of R $ XNUMX products, smuggling has been established in the new molds without there being a repression in favor from the country.

Thus, it was a great surprise that the Federal Police, the Federal Revenue Service and organized groups against crime, such as Geproc, commanded by the Public Ministry and integrated by several segments of Public Security, opened in recent days a powerful repression against this type of activity , arresting smugglers, seizing goods and instituting criminal proceedings against those involved.

COMBATE - In the Pindorama operation, carried out a few days ago in Belém and some municipalities of Pará, smugglers established more than 20 years ago, with great patrimony, starting with the houses and apartments where they were arrested, they were taken by surprise and even surprised the police action because of so much impunity in dealing with the collection of taxes, they imagined themselves in the exercise of a legal and honorable activity.

It is possible that from now on, if there is no change in the new order to combat smuggling, he will make the products public to the public, his executors will be much more cautious, but the activity, so entrenched, will certainly not end.

To exemplify, the actions against the entry of virgin or recorded CDs and DVDs in Belém were intense by the authorities. However, these products continue to be seen in commerce with the same quantity as before. It is said that the unit, which today costs an average of R $ 2,00, should go to R $ 2,50.

>> The smugglers scheme and who controls the operations

Federal Police sources, such as Chief Uálame Machado, report that the “Pindorama” operation revealed the fact that Pará smugglers packed dry and wet food products and sent them to Suriname, in the far north of South America, and they received them back with a lot of contraband material, mainly electronics, computers, etc., supplying informal commerce in the capital and inland cities, for a long time.

In Paramaribo, capital of Suriname, when food arrives legally, prices are expensive. Thus, food entering Brazil in a clandestine way has been welcome there for a long time. Likewise, the exchange for products sold in Brazil and of great popular demand, entering here pirated, formed the perfect trade for smugglers.

It will not be a single operation, like “Pindorama”, that will change this illegal business environment. However, it is a severe blow to the business structure and opens the possibility, due to its success, of obtaining greater attention from the government.

New investigations are already underway, in the sense that the authorities reach other organized gangs that operate within Belém and have a close commercial connection with businessmen from the Southeast of the country, mainly São Paulo.

Inside Belém, street vendors are supplied by a very well managed system. There is a manager covered by several distributors, who does not even have his name disclosed to anyone who receives the goods and pays them weekly, or sometimes at the time of delivery.

In the course of this investigative work, which aims to identify these people, the Civil Police has already entered. Divisions like Dioe, which has been fighting in Belém to sell various smuggled items, actually pirated ones, and keeps in touch with street vendors, it is already possible to know where to get these people, although it is not known yet if there is any plan underway arrests are made. Some names are even part of dossiers in the hands of operational chiefs of the Force.

Another body very interested in identifying gangs, or even contraband managers in Belém and the state, is the IRS. In Geproc's operations and in the recent “Pindorama” operation, its agents were glued to the men of the Federal Police seeking the necessary information by which they can act in the repression of tax evasion.

CLANDESTINE PORTS - It is already known to the authorities, now focused on combating smuggling, that there are more than a hundred clandestine ports on the outskirts of Belém that allow the smuggling of land to supply our informal trade. The surveys carried out lead to neighborhoods such as Tenoné, Outeiro and Ananindeua, where the Maguari river and its arms pass. Also in the Estrada Nova area, in the Jurunas district, private ports are used and on the edge of Guajará Bay, mainly in the Pratinha district, as well as in Vila da Barca. (Diário do Pará)