PM arrests 14 people for counterfeiting beer in the interior of SP

Between Thursday (8) and Monday (11), the Military Police arrested 14 people for falsifying beers in Sorocaba inside São Paulo .

At the addresses where the searches took place, agents found a total of 510 boxes of alcoholic beverages. According to the PM, the perpetrators of the crime confessed that they bought cheaper drinks and replaced them with more expensive and well-known brand labels on the market.

The complaints were received by the Brazilian Association to Combat Counterfeiting (ABCF) and sent to the police by the organization.

According to ABCF, replacements were made in warehouses without any hygiene, where product contamination even occurred. Since January 2024, 15 factories have been reported by the association for counterfeiting beer.

The prisoners, who were between 18 and 38 years old, were taken to the 4th and 6th Police District and remained at the disposal of the Justice Department, informed the São Paulo Public Security Secretariat. They were arrested for crimes against consumer relations and criminal organization.

Association attributed falsifications to the extinction of the inspection body

According to a study produced by ABCF, tax evasion in the beverage sector increased by 292% from 2016 to 2022, with a sharp increase in counterfeiting and smuggling of products during this period.

The association states that the end of the Beverage Production Control System (Sicobe), in 2016, opened space for the “exponential” growth of the illegal market in the sector.

In a statement, the ABCF defended the “immediate return of traceability in the beverage sector in order to effectively combat tax evasion, counterfeiting and smuggling and to exponentially increase the sector’s revenue, generating a fairer environment of competition for companies that work within the law.”