Buenos Aires, April 6 (NA) – Half of the imports in the textile value chain were made with underinvoicing, and 76% of the kilograms entered were declared at negligible costs, such as t-shirts at $14, when two years ago they were valued 21 times higher. The anomaly has been recorded since the government of Javier Milei decided to eliminate the minimum threshold criterion values, and its application was verified in the massive entry of cell phones by the Ezeiza Customs, according to a confidential report to which some media had access, including Noticias Argentinas Agency. In the case of textiles, underinvoicing reached as much as 76% of imports once customs controls were dismantled, as industrialists point out. Oversight sources reveal that, likewise, mainly about six firms are active in bringing mobile electronic devices into the country, under the command of a 'Fuenteovejuna of smuggling', whom they call 'the King of Phones'. Behind cell phones, the main sectors are tobacco, beer, footwear, and others. Cell Phones. Before the government change, Customs had seized hundreds of high-end devices, including a case with 116 iPhones in Iguazú, and other operations with thousands of units (20,000+ in one case), attributed to that criminal organization. The products, mainly iPhones, had been seized for attempted illegal commercial entry. The Argentine Association of Electronic Terminal Factories (Afarte) revealed that one in three cell phones activated in Argentina was neither manufactured in the country nor legally imported. This modality has been growing in the last two years. On average, more than 55,000 smuggled cell phones enter the country per week. According to official figures, of the 9.4 million cell phones sold annually in the country, more than 3 million entered by smuggling during 2025. Textile Underinvoicing. The textile report is more precise, containing a breakdown by link: underinvoicing of raw materials is 75%, of yarns 81%, of woven fabrics from 74% to 93%; of knitted fabrics 51%, in garments 67%. They add up to some 330 million underinvoiced kilograms in the value chain. It also lists synthetic fiber coats whose import was declared between 2023 and 2024 at $11.84 and are now registered at $2, and cotton garments that were brought in at $21 and are now declared at $1, as well as the example of t-shirts declared at cents of a dollar. Such differences exceed the logic that there may be in billing margins, as in the case of the t-shirt at $14. This maneuver directly affects the bulk of the payment of VAT, Income Tax, and import duties, with an impact on the fiscal plane. Import duties and the statistical rate were the second item with the greatest drop in March's collection: 17.3% year-on-year, only surpassed by export duties.
