From fuel resale to illegal gold mining, through smuggling cigarettes and alcohol, organized crime quickly advances in various sectors of the Brazilian economy and has earned almost $ 350 billion in the last three years.
In addition to billionaire revenues, the amount gains more relevance amid government measures to increase the collection and improve the country’s fiscal situation.
In the fuel sector alone, the Union ceases to raise R $ 29 billion per year due to illegalities, according to data from the Legal Fuel Institute (ICL).
There are R $ 14 billion of annual losses due to tax fraud, such as evasion – by means of fictional statement of taxes, sale without invoice, fictitious interstate sale, deviation of purpose in imports and exports – and default, in which they enter the façade companies, tuminous debtors and money laundering.
The other R $ 15 billion comes from fuels -related operational fraud, such as cargo theft and theft, adulteration and quality fraud, volumetric fraud, formulators and clandestine mixers, as well as pirate stations.
“They are annual losses of collection at the federal and state level, with the non -collection of ICMS and other taxes. We realize that tax fraud has diminished with new legislations, such as monasia of diesel and gasoline, which make it difficult to evade, but operational fraud has increased,” said Emerson Kaoda, president of ICL.
According to Kaoda, the structure of organized crime in the fuel sector already exceeds the performance in the clandestine posts. Currently, criminal organizations also work in distributors, as well as using fintech machines and even producing bombs.
“The money they withdraw from the market through evasion and default is reinvested in new irregular mechanisms, buying a network of posts, distributors and even refineries and formulators. All to make it difficult to monitor unlawful money. This capital is feedback by organized criminal groups, enabling money laundering and harming the entire market,” said Carlo Faccio, executive director of the executive director of ICL.
The fuel sector is only the tip of all organized crime revenues and part of the government’s collection losses. However, experts consulted by CNN They point out that it is difficult to make a general estimate of the collection potential with all illegal activities because many of them are not linked to the real economy and have no concrete estimates of financial movement, ie, on which taxes and taxes would have incidence.
Billing of Crime
A survey of the Brazilian Public Security Forum (FBSP) details where criminal activities have spread. Since 2022, the main illicit movements have been in four areas: illegal commercialization of fuels (R $ 61.5 BI); illegal marketing of drinks (R $ 56.9 billion); illegal gold extraction and production (R $ 18.2 billion); and illegal trade of tobacco and cigarettes (R $ 10.3 billion).
Another highlight is the amount raised for the crime with cocaine trafficking. The estimate, considered conservative by the organization, is that there was a movement of about $ 15 billion in the period.
“We realize, in this data, the size of the problem we have in combating organized crime, especially from an economic point of view,” he told CNN Cássio Thyone, Public Security specialist and advisor to the Brazilian Public Security Forum.
Also according to the survey, virtual crimes and cellular thefts generated losses of approximately R $ 186 billion between July 2023 and the same month of 2024. In all, approximately R $ 347.8 billion generated when adding all areas of criminal action.
Stretch
Experts also claim that there is no calculation of what could be collected by the government if criminal activities were legalized and undergoing the incidence of taxes and taxes.
Senator Efraim Filho (Union-PB) says that a debt of approximately R $ 200 billion in unpaid taxes is concentrated at only 1,200 CNPJs.
Efraim is a rapporteur of. The proposal defines as reiterated default the lack of full payment of taxes in at least four consecutive periods of calculation or in six alternate periods within 12 months.
The figures cited by Efraim, he said, were passed on to him by the IRS herself. “And the Ministry of Finance is not expected to recover,” he says.
According to the senator, most of the time, the stretch debtor is associated with illicit activities and money laundering. Therefore, it does not care about the tax payment.
“The project is ready for voting. It was extensively debated with the government, the private sector and the congress,” adds Efraim.
FBSP’s Thyone reinforces the understanding that economic activity from organized crime is more prone to evasion. “As it is criminal activity, one more crime, a less crime, makes no difference,” he said.
Financial impact
Although it is not palpable to estimate in real amounts the union loss of the Union as a result of organized crime, experts point out that there is a strong impact on what is failed to raise if the activities were legalized.
“Organized crime operates in a parallel economy, since activities such as drug and weapon trafficking, smuggling of cigarettes and electronic, and illegal rask games move billions of reais annually, on which no tribute – neither ICMS, nor IPI or Income Tax,” said Beatriz Colin, a lawyer in economic criminal law.
According to Colin, it is not possible to know for sure how much moved by organized crime and what would be the taxes incident for each transaction, as well as the rates that would be charged.
“In addition, organized crime promotes unfair competition from those who work legitimately. That’s because a regular company can hardly compete with prices of sometimes stolen or smuggled products,” he added.
Fernando Capano, PhD in Constitutional Law and Master in Political and Economic Law, stresses that, from the legal-institutional perspective, organized crime severely compromises the economic dynamics of the country.
“Criminal factions operate on the sidelines of the tax system, infiltrate the state apparatus to divert resources, foster illicit markets and weaken confidence in regulatory frameworks and public institutions,” he said.
“Legally, organized crime represents a structural factor of erosion of the formal economy: reduces revenue through evasion and smuggling, compromises the allocation of public resources (via systemic corruption), and creates parallel markets that suffocate free competition and deteriorates the institutional credibility of the state,” he added.
When questioned by CNNthe Ministry of Finance replied that the IRS does not have “consolidated estimates on collection losses resulting from organized crime performance” and that the available data “refer to the seizures performed under Customs and Foreign Trade”.
Combat measures
To make criminal actions unfeasible, Cássio Thyone emphasizes the importance of measures such as investment in technology and training training, but says each criminal activity requires specific combat attention.
“Each mode has its specific question that can be improved. For example, there is revenue from mobile to theft, so you need to invest in tools and technologies that can block the device and track the devices that have been stolen,” he said.
Between 2023 and 2024, the Federal Police managed to make about R $ 8.9 billion that would go to organized crime accounts. Of this amount, R $ 5.6 billion refers only to last year.
In January this year, PF Director General Andrei Rodrigues said that this number should still be expanded “due to the approval and confirmation of all operations and inquiries so that the amount that is accounted for is a real and effective value of seized goods.”
According to Andrei Rodrigues, some goods are still under expertise for valuation analysis and, therefore, the data must undergo a review.
“It is very difficult to make this account. The sphere did a study with the National Public Security Forum that points to a burden of over $ 450 billion for companies in 2022 due to organized crime,” said crime lawyer Pierpaolo Bottini.
Billionaire movements
The study by the Brazil Sphere, released in 2024, in partnership with the Brazilian Public Security Forum, shows how organized crime infiltrated large sectors of the economy.
According to the survey, groups can earn about R $ 335 billion only with the illegal flow of cocaine in Brazil, the equivalent of 4% of the country’s GDP.
Already the cryptors, despite being negotiated for less than 20 years, are illicitly moving about R $ 24.2 billion, representing 0.34% of transactions with digital actives worldwide.
After the study of the study, the sphere and the FBSP presented solutions to public security authorities to face organized crime and reduce the damage generated from criminal activities. See the main ones:
- Approve the general data protection bill of public security interest to organize data management and sharing and avoid legal insecurity that affects criminal investigations;
- Creation of an organized crime committee with members of the Ministries of Justice, Farm, Civil House, Comptroller General of the Union and Attorney General of the Union;
- Strengthening the Financial Activities Control Board, COAF, and allocate the resources obtained by the agency with taxes and fines for additions in technology and employees;
- Regulation of cryptors;
- Betting sector regulation.
