Smuggling from Uruguayan Coast to Brasil in Growth

Custom judges and hierarchy are noting a bigger contraband from Argentina to Brazil through the Uruguayan coast. In 13 months, Customs did 639 seizures only in Paysandú province.

“An increase in the amount of custom infractions in the coast has been noticed. For example, one part of the cloth contraband that goes through there stays in Uruguay and the big part goes to Brazil by land”, said the custom judge, Julia Elena Staricco. The judge said some smugglers organizations have been detected and custom and penal juries have taken action among the subject.

Meanwhile, the seconded of the National Direction of Customs, Jorge Iribarnegaray, said that the Uruguayan coast is “a risk border” and that the organism “is paying special attention”. He added that the merchandise that arrives from Argentina is varied.
“The traffic is that is coming from that country is very strong”.

The Argentinean merchandising which are mostly demanded in the Brazilian territory is clothing, perfumes, cosmetics, cigarettes, alcoholic drinks and glasses. The origins of that merchandise are the Argentinean fairs, especially “La Salada” (in Buenos Aires province).

According to Customs, Paysandú has the major entry of merchandising and this tendency still maintains this year. In January and February 2011, 103 seizures were done. In February this sum tripled the one done by the Customary Surveillance (20). This means 639 seizures in 14 months.

Besides the merchandising delivered by land, the judge Staricco mentioned the great-scale smuggling generated through the turnouts of containers in transit.

In several opportunities, containers with opened seals have been detected and the investigations conclude that they must have been violated in another port. In plenty occasions, they cannot detect if the recipient was opened in Montevideo´s port or in the way to Zona Franca (A free port or free zone, sometimes also called a bonded area).

Iribarnegaray expressed that merchandising with counterfeit marks in transit for Uruguay has Paraguay as destination. Custom operatives have seized thousands of Vuitton purses, Nike and Adidas shoes and informatics items for that cause.