Officials from the National Customs Service seized more than $400 million worth of cell phones, tablets and game consoles in the commune of Colchane (north).
According to reports on Wednesday (04.10.2022), the merchandise was transported in carts and appeared to be part of the local trade in the towns of Pisiga Choque and Pisiga Bolívar, a border crossing between the Republic of Chile and the Plurinational State of Bolivia.
El Regional Director of the Iquique Customs, Cristian Molina Silva, said that based on the risk analysis associated with the irregular flow that occurs in the vicinity of the Colchane border complex, a special intervention was arranged by a team of officials.
In this way, the inspectors managed to intercept 1.302 cell phones high-end brands from Samsung, Xiaomi and Honor, 20 adapters, 40 chargers, 45 Galaxy tablets and 30 Sony Play Station 5The goods in question were transported by minibus and then transferred to carts.
Molina Silva added that "in this case they were doing misuse of an ancestral step which promotes cross-border trade between neighbours. To do this, they had documents with false information and filled 139 boxes with cell phones, which they later wrapped in sacks similar to those used to transport pululos.”
The seized merchandise has a customs value of US$ 413.232,42 and the estimated tax evasion amounts to $104.901.504.
The owner of the cargo was a Bolivian citizen who bought it at Zofri and intended to deliver it to merchants in Oruro and Cochabamba. After the case, he was charged with smuggling for violating Article 168 of the Customs Ordinance, since it is a punishable conduct to take goods out of the country through unauthorized places or without presenting them to Customs. In addition, Article 178 of the same Ordinance states that persons found responsible for the crimes of smuggling or fraud will be punished with a fine of 1 to 5 times the value of the merchandise or with minor imprisonment in its minimum to medium degrees or with both penalties at the same time, if this value exceeds 25 Monthly Tax Units.
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