Source: Brasília in Real Time, 26/11/2007

The Federal Police extended the siege to organizations involved in fraud against the Treasury, financial crimes and against taxation and corruption, but did not give up the fight against drug trafficking and smuggling.

In 2007, 166 large-scale operations were carried out, bringing 2.126 businessmen, money changers, smugglers and other suspects to prison, including 220 civil servants, as updated until Friday - an increase of 18,5% compared to operations carried out in the same period in 2006.

Tax evaders were also caught who, being fined, were compelled to collect taxes that they never, or rarely, deposited. In recent months, the PF has exposed this new trend in its expeditions against crime. The shares won the partnership with the Revenue. This engagement of tax auditors with police raids has allowed the collection of accounting documents and cash books in the offices and homes of PF targets.

About 60% of missions caught tax evaders involved in money laundering and currency evasion schemes. The new federal strategy reveals that the institution, in addition to removing criminal organizations from circulation - many of them with ramifications in the public administration -, has become a strong arm of the Treasury collection.

For example, in just five lawsuits in Paraná, which resulted from integrated actions by the PF and the Federal Revenue Service, 12.109 taxpayers were assessed. In one of these cases, Operation Beacon Hill - in 2004, the arrest of 54 money changers who maintained accounts in New York owned by Brazilian businessmen - the tax authorities imposed a sanction on 4.431 taxpayers, of which 296 were public officials.

The amount of the tax credit constituted in inspection procedures in the Beacon Hill case, until June 13, reached R $ 1,023 billion.

In Operation Persona, which caught allegedly irregular imports from the Cisco group, Revenue estimates tax evasion of R $ 1,5 billion. Narciso, which took the superbutique Daslu two years ago, found a R $ 700 million gap in unpaid taxes.