Author: Martha Beck

Source: O Globo, 21/10/2007

BRASILIA. The sophistication of smugglers forced the IRS to set up groups specialized in monitoring websites to identify the sale of illegal products in the country. The inspectors enter the network to obtain information about the smuggled cargo deposits, in addition to detecting how the products arrived in Brazil. There are sites that sell pirated items as "replicas" at much lower prices. A Louis Vuitton scholarship, for example, is offered for R $ 300, when the real one costs more than a thousand reais. The contacts on the sites are always cell phones, and payment is made by bank deposits.

The audacity of the scammers is so great that some claim, on its pages, that the products are intended for collectors and that the company is not responsible if buyers sell the merchandise as if it were original.

The inspectors' strategy is straightforward: simulate purchases and analyze invoices, in addition to investigating the accounts provided by scammers for payment. Another measure is to tighten the inspection on orders made by the Post Office. Last month, in the one-day operation Leão Expresso II, the Treasury seized R $ 900 thousand in products that would be delivered by the Post Office.

According to the head of the Counterfeiting, Smuggling and Piracy Revenue Division, Mauro de Brito, buyers can also be summoned to help: - When goods are seized, the buyer can be called in to inform, for example, how he did payment and in which account you deposited the amounts.

According to him, smuggling and piracy come in many different forms. The main one is the border with Paraguay, either by the Friendship Bridge, in Foz do Iguaçu, in Paraná, or by cities in Mato Grosso do Sul and Paraná. This year, until August, the seizures made by the customs area reached R $ 675 million.

For the president of the Etco Institute, André Franco Montoro Filho, the challenges are increasingly greater, since crime has become more sophisticated and is affecting not only companies, but the growth of the economy.

According to the National Council to Combat Piracy, if this crime were to be eradicated, two million formal jobs would be generated per year in the country. In addition, Brazil fails to collect R $ 27 billion annually in taxes.