Brazilian Federal Police launched on Wednesday a large-scale operation to crack down on a gang involved in the country's biggest foreign trade fraud, and arrested 79 suspects, police said.

They also said nine of the detainees were employees of Brazil's Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Police investigations showed that the gang, led by Brazilian entrepreneur Marco Antonio Mansur, imported about 516 million U.S. dollars worth of goods over the past four years.

Apart from domestic taxes, the gang is charged with evading around 234.7 million U.S. dollars of taxes on imports during the period, which means the prices of imports were reduced averagely by 50 percent when they arrived at Brazilian Customs.

Twenty-four Brazilian big retailers allegedly bought illegal imports from the gang, ranging from plastic bottles to car and motorcycle tyres.

The so-called Deluge Operation is the biggest operation ever launched by Brazilian Federal Police. A total of about 1,300 agents from the Federal Police and the IRS are participating in action. Investigations into the fraud started in 2005 and culminated on Wednesday with the arrests.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security has offered assistance in the Brazilian police operation, allowing a team of Brazilian federal agents to investigate in Miami, the United States, where companies run by the gang are located, and thus granting the operation "a transnational character," police authorities stressed.

Source: Xinhua