Nutritious and rich in vitamin C, oranges are present in the diet of many people around the world. However, this article will not talk about the benefits of tasty fruit, but about illegal practices very recurrent in calls "white collar crimes" and that involve people who are called, in popular jargon and in the police world, as "oranges".
You oranges they are basically people who provide their personal data (name, CPF and bank account, for example) for third parties to make purchases and register goods in the name of the person who provided the data. There are also shell companies, which are open only to cover up the illicit enrichment of criminals or to be sources of corruption through the false provision of services to public and private entities.
Read too: What is corruption?
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Types of "Oranges"
→ Orange natural person
When someone requests the name of a third party, usually a natural person (it is an individual, not a company), to acquire goods, this person aims, for some reason, to hide these goods or make it appear, before the Court Or the
IRS, which does not have that well acquired.Oranges can be aware of what they are doing and, in order to do so, they receive something in return. There are also cases where people, usually from low purchasing power and little education, they are induced to sign documents and end up becoming, without knowing it, criminal oranges - by inference, it is in this the last sense (of naivety) that gives the term orange a meaning other than that of the fruit, originally.
Why does anyone do this, either naively or consciously? We've listed some reasons below.
Concealment of assets for tax evasion
In Brazil and in several countries around the world, the Income tax contribution rates are variable: the more a person earns, the greater the percentage they must contribute. Therefore, many people make the call tax evasion or evasion, declaring to the Internal Revenue Service less than they actually have.
However, goods such as properties, automobiles, actions, companies and business societies they may be sufficient evidence to prove that the person has an income greater than what he declared. For example, if someone declares to the IRS that he has an income of X, when, in fact, his income is 10X, it would be very suspicious if that someone had cars, real estate and stocks befitting their income real. What does this person do? She acquires the goods consistent with her real income, but does not register them in her name, looking for the so-called oranges to register them.
Concealment of Illicit Enrichment
If a person gets rich very quickly and starts to acquire goods that do not match his income or his profession, he is either evading taxes or committing even worse crimes, such as: passive corruption (when a person, often within the political sphere, receives money or goods in exchange for illicit favors), drug trafficking, arms trafficking etc.
When a criminal, whether fraud at the Federal Revenue or the organized crime, doesn't want to raise suspicion about the source of his money, he hides his true fortune by distributing it among oranges, making it look like he has little and not raising suspicions from the police forces and the Revenue Federal.
Providing a name for acquiring credit
Common among Brazilians, even among honest workers, this practice consists of buying something for someone who has a name in the Credit Protection Service (SPC) — the famous “dirty name” — and cannot make purchases in installments or acquire credit from banks and financial institutions. In this case, there is often an informal agreement between the two parties and, in most cases, as they are low-cost goods, the Federation is not interested in inspecting this type of practice.
→ Legal entity (company) orange
- Front companies to conceal illicit enrichment arising from organized crime: it is common for criminals — generally linked to drug trafficking, arms trafficking or human trafficking and others branches of organized crime that move a lot of money — open shell companies to "launder the dirty money" from the crime. These companies, also known as orange companies, most of the time, do not even work, being just empty offices or commercial rooms that issue false invoices, the so-called "cold notes", to make it appear that the money resulting from the crime is from a lawful source.
Shell companies for false service provision: very common in the political sphere, this practice aims at opening orange companies that, supposedly, they provide services for public companies (in most cases) and sometimes for private companies. They issue false invoices and get paid for services that were not rendered, profiting from big corruption schemes. These companies are often maintained by politicians and big businessmen and registered in the names of oranges to detach from the real owner (someone connected to the public administration) the activity for him practiced.
Read too: Money laundry
How do oranges harm the country?
Property concealment practices harm the population in several ways. If a criminal keeps oranges to hide property from the crime, he harms the population directly by keeping the organized crime, which is responsible for fraud and the deaths of innocent people (in the case, mainly, of drug trafficking and weapons).
If a person commits a crime of tax evasion (tax evasion), he fails to properly contribute to the Internal Revenue Service, which causes a deficit in tax collection that should be allocated to investments in public services, such as health, education and security public.
Punishment for the oranges
The arrest of those involved in orange schemes is one of the punishments, although it rarely occurs.
Since 2013, there has been a specific law that punishes the practice of concealment of assets and other illegal practices that harm public administration and the public good. it is about the law 12846/13, which, among other things, punishes those companies that use third parties (oranges) or that are the oranges themselves in actions of corruption, bribe payment or false service provision that result in fraud or injuries Against the public administration.
The penalties provided for the companies and persons responsible for these practices can range from fines and refund of embezzled money to imprisonment for those involved. However, as they involve millionaire schemes by influential people, punishments are only applied in rare cases where the media makes the situation public.
by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor
