Overview
- Late June federal raids called operation MK8 involved 24 simultaneous searches across five provinces and led prosecutors to impute five people while seizing more than 54 tonnes of tobacco, about 14 million falsified tax stamps and industrial machinery.
- Investigators located a clandestine plant in San Luis that they say had capacity to produce roughly 700 million counterfeit cigarettes annually and that may have generated illicit profits near USD 32 million.
- Prosecutors allege the group ran a vertically integrated scheme that manufactured branded counterfeits, applied forged fiscal stamps, used transport companies and cash sales to hide shipments, and distributed stock to retailers in at least Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Mendoza, San Juan and San Luis.
- The case grew from a probe that began in July 2024 by the Fiscalía Federal de Gualeguaychú with support from Prefectura Naval and relied on months of surveillance, controlled buys, phone interceptions, logistics tracking and patrimonial analysis to map the network.
- Authorities say the investigation will continue with forensic exams and financial tracing to quantify tax losses, pursue asset recovery and determine whether wider money‑laundering networks or cross‑border flows were involved.