They arrested 17 people for smuggling more than 100 high-end cars from Brazil to Uruguay

The Uruguayan police arrested 17 people for a criminal maneuver involving vehicles stolen and then smuggled from Brazil. The director of communication of the Prosecutor's Office, Javier Benech, announced that among those arrested there are six municipal officials from the Transit area of the Cerro Largo City Council, a department bordering the Brazilian border in the east of the country.

After the investigation, at least one hundred vehicles were identified, including high-end cars and motorcycles that, apparently, crossed the border from Brazil and were legalized in Uruguay, the newspaper El País reported.

Earlier this morning, as part of the operation, raids were carried out in Melo, Ciudad de la Costa, Piriapolis and Montevideo, all cities in the east of the country. There the arrests took place and they were all taken to Melo for trial.

The investigation began after a complaint by the Department of Vehicle Controller of the Montevideo City Council, in November 2021. The prosecutor in charge is Leticia Siqueira who, in this case, is working with the National Intelligence Directorate and the Department of Automotive of the Directorate of Organized Crime.

“The motorcycles that the subjects bought were with an order for a judicial auction and based on that they registered them (...) That is, there was nothing unusual for people to realize that they were buying vehicles with some kind of violation,” said Eduardo Sasson, the lawyer for one of the 17 detainees.

Today “they will give us the investigation folder to inform us of whether or not there is any illegal act because so far the defenses have not had access to any prosecution documents,” added the lawyer. Last Tuesday, a cut was made in detention to consider whether to formalize the detainees, to whom precautionary measures were applied.

According to Uruguayan law, there is a 48-hour period after arrest where the prosecutor can investigate and decide whether to charge detainees with a crime.

Another big case

One of the known cases of car smuggling in Uruguay happened in July 2020, when ten people were convicted of smuggling vehicles from Brazil and selling them more expensive across the border. In contrast to the current case, ten cars were seized in the city of Mercedes, in the west of the country.

The same sanctions were applied to those formalized for the smuggling of the hundred cars, according to the Customs Code, which implies the commission of the goods, charging the costs of the process, the payment of double the taxes that would have been due, a fine of 20% of the customs value and the confiscation of the means of transport that would have been drive the goods at the time of their arrest.

Customs offences are considered “difference”, “fraud” and “smuggling”. In the latter case, the law considers that there is smuggling in any entry or exit, import or export of goods that is intended to result in a loss of tax income or in violation of the essential requirements for the import or export of certain items that establish special laws or regulations not yet customs officers.

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