Illegal trade cost Brazil's economy roughly half a trillion reais in 2025, according to industry surveys released this week. The National Forum Against Piracy and Illegality (FNCP), a private sector group, put the losses at 473.2 billion reais across 15 productive sectors last year. The Brazilian Anti-Counterfeiting Association (ABCF) reaches 514 billion reais, up 8% from 2024. Business daily Valor Econômico ran a series of reports on the theme, and the debate reached Congress, where a Chamber of Deputies committee approved a package proposing an "anti-mafia agency".

The FNCP figures combine 326.3 billion reais in direct losses to industry and 146.8 billion in tax evasion, as reported by CNN Brasil. The trend keeps climbing: losses stood at 100 billion reais in 2014 and 288 billion in 2020, a 64% rise over five years. Clothing (87.3 billion), alcoholic beverages (83.2 billion) and fuels (29 billion) top the sector ranking, with agricultural pesticides at 20.6 billion. In retail, the National Confederation of Commerce (CNC) counted 179.3 billion reais in losses in 2025 across fuels, clothing, electronics and pharmacies, equal to 13.8% of legal sales in those segments. FNCP president Edson Vismona notes that 35 other affected sectors still lack computed data; with them, the bill would pass 500 billion reais. According to the Latin American Anti-Smuggling Alliance (Alac), illegality equals 3.75% of Brazil's GDP, against a 2% regional average.

Where the money flows

Valor describes how the profile of illegal trade has changed: the street smuggler who once hauled clothes and drinks from Paraguay on tourist buses has given way to organized networks embedded in global logistics chains. According to the paper, these networks have opened clandestine factories in Brazil, some holding active tax registrations, to make Paraguayan cigarette brands, beverages and, more recently, pesticides and medicines, sold in territories controlled by militias. Today 31% of the cigarettes sold in Brazil are illegal, and the country's third best-selling brand is smuggled in from Paraguay, with 10% of the market, according to an Ipsos Ipec survey cited by CNN Brasil. "The penalty for counterfeiting a brand runs from three months to one year. It is an economic equation of very high profit, because criminal organizations pay no taxes, and low risk", Vismona said. Rodolpho Heck Ramazzini, a director at ABCF, estimates that federal inspectors seize less than 6% of the illegal goods entering the country.

An anti-mafia agency in debate

In the lower house of Congress, the special committee on piracy acts and the "Brasil Legal" agenda approved on September 1 a partial report by Deputy Julio Lopes of the PP party, according to the Chamber's news agency. It carries three proposals: a constitutional amendment creating a National Authority to Counter Criminal Organizations, the "anti-mafia agency", an idea that Veja magazine traces to São Paulo state prosecutor Lincoln Gakiya of Gaeco, the prosecutors' organized-crime task force; a bill setting up a National System to Counter Criminal Organizations (Sineoc) to coordinate public agencies; and a bill toughening the fight against digital piracy, with longer sentences for copyright violations and immediate forfeiture of seized goods. The report lists practices it calls "cannibalization of the formal market", from territorial control of cooking gas cylinder sales to fuel theft and adulteration, smuggling of cigarettes and pesticides, and sales of fake medicines on digital platforms. In the rapporteur's view, the country has consolidated a parallel economy:

"What has consolidated in the country in recent years is a billion-dollar and highly sophisticated underground economy, intertwined with transnational organized crime, armed factions and militias"

Lopes calls for a transformation of the state's inspection capacity, with artificial intelligence, product traceability, customs modernization and accountability for online marketplaces. After the vote, lawmakers and industry groups launched the Movimento Brasil Legal in the Chamber. In an interview with Valor, economist Cristina Pinotti, a researcher who studies organized crime drawing on Italy's experience, said Brazil would take a sound step by creating an agency modeled on Italy's Direzione Investigativa Antimafia (DIA), as long as it comes with an anti-corruption agency and a digital infrastructure agency. She points to the alliance between the PCC, Brazil's largest criminal faction, and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta in the cocaine trade routed through Brazil to Europe as a warning sign.

For formal producers and retailers, the cost shows up as lost sales: counterfeit soccer jerseys already accounted for 34% of that category in 2025, and the textile sector sold 225 million pirated garments during the year, according to figures cited by Valor. For consumers, the risk lies in the product itself: fake medicines, adulterated fuels and e-cigarettes sold without approval from Anvisa, the national health regulator, used by about 10 million Brazilians, according to a University of São Paulo study with Ipsos.