Man convicted of pesticide smuggling in Rio Grande do Sul

Federal judge João Pedro Gomes Machado, from the 2nd Federal Court of Santana do Livramento, in Rio Grande do Sul, sentenced a 49-year-old man for smuggling 37 kg of pesticides, which were seized at a checkpoint on the border with Uruguay .

According to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF), the defendant was caught transporting cargo of foreign origin at the Santana do Livramento checkpoint. The accused confessed to the crime and requested a mitigating factor in calculating the sentence by spontaneous confession (article 65, III, “d”, of the Penal Code).

The analysis of the case revealed that the materiality and authorship of the crime were proven through the expert report that examined the products and the arrest report in the act. The judge found that the man was traveling as a hitchhiker at the time of the police approach and was carrying, inside three black bags, 35 packages of 200g of herbicide and 60 packages of 500g of insecticide.

The cargo was not registered to be sold in Brazil; and its labels were in Spanish, without translation into Portuguese, which violates Brazilian legislation. Furthermore, the products had been purchased in Uruguay.

The accused, in his statement, said that he had already been caught twice carrying prohibited products. He claimed that he does the transport for the money, which he needs to pay for his daughter's studies, who wants to study medicine.

The judge considered that the defendant's conduct was criminal, as he imported and transported products harmful to human health and the environment in violation of the requirements established by law and regulations. As a result, the accused was sentenced to one year in prison, which was replaced by the provision of community service, for the same length of the sentence.

The sentence may be appealed to the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRF4).