cAs the perpetrator of the crimes of customs smuggling, the Argentine truck driver who in April 2023 tried to enter one of the largest shipments of contraband cigarettes discovered on the border was sentenced to three years in prison.
This happened a year ago, on the night of April 10, 2023, around 8:30 p.m. Customs Service personnel stationed at the outpost of the San Sebastián border crossing, in Tierra del Fuego, inspected the driver who was driving a Scania truck, identified as Alejandro Marcelo Tarifa, of Argentine nationality.
The vehicle is for the transportation of bulk cement. But that day, during the external inspection, they detected inside the hopper that the driver was transporting different black garbage bags, inside which there were 130 bales or cardboard boxes with cigarettes from different foreign brands.
The merchandise was hidden, and was not declared to the Customs Service. This led the officials to request the presence of Carabineros de la Tenencia de San Sebastián, who accepted the complaint.
The final count showed 65,750 packs of cigarettes, from different brands, such as V8, Red Point, Marlboro coral fusion and Marlboro purple fusion, valued at 199 million 105 thousand 614 pesos, in national currency.
Prosecutor Aguirre
The chief prosecutor of the Sacfi (Criminal Analysis and Investigative Focus System), Felipe Aguirre Pallavicini, filed an accusation against the Argentine truck driver, to take him to trial. But given that this person did not have a criminal record, the Public Ministry agreed to settle the case through an abbreviated trial. He modified the initial sentence, which was higher, and left it at 3 years plus the payment of a fine of 7 million 200 thousand pesos.
This led the Argentine citizen to accept the facts and, in the process, to renounce the right to go to an oral trial, risking a greater penalty.
At the request of the defense, this person may serve the sentence through conditional remission (by signing), for the same 3 years of the sentence.
“It is ordered that Carabineros de Monte Aymond be appointed to ensure compliance with this alternative sentence,” the judge of Letters and Guarantee of Porvenir, Cristián Matus Cuevas, ruled in the ruling.
At the same time, they granted him the facility to pay the fine in 36 installments.
All the merchandise was seized, “with the exception of the tractor-trailer whose return to its owner was made in the aftermath of this trial.”
