Brazil will seek U.S. help to combat organized crime as part of ongoing trade negotiations, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said Thursday, after a police operation targeting tax evasion and money laundering in the country’s fuel sector.

Brazilian investigations have revealed that organized criminal groups are laundering money through investment funds based in Delaware, Haddad said, citing the probe. Criminal groups are also sending illegal weapons from the U.S. to Brazil via shipping containers that are meant to transport commodities, the minister told reporters in Brasilia.

“We want to open a working front with the U.S. to inhibit money laundering using tax havens, as well as other prohibited practices like the illegal export of weapons to Brazil,” Haddad said.

Brazilian authorities said earlier Thursday that they had carried out an operation to dismantle a tax fraud scheme involving one of the country’s largest business groups in the fuel industry. Local media reported that the company in question was Grupo Refit, a conglomerate that controls a major refinery in Rio de Janeiro.

The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal and state authorities carried out search and seizure warrants across multiple states, and more than 10 billion reais ($1.9 billion) in assets were frozen as part of the operation, according to Sao Paulo’s state government.

Investigations show that the group moved more than 70 billion reais in one year using its own companies, investment funds and offshore entities to conceal and shield profits, according to a release from Brazil’s federal revenue service, which was involved in the operation.

“We are closing in on those who, up there in the upper echelons, in Faria Lima, in their mansions in Miami and Europe, are eroding public safety in Brazil,” Robinson Barreirinhas, secretary of the federal revenue service, said at a press conference, using the name of Sao Paulo’s financial district.

Authorities identified more than 15 offshore companies in the U.S. that transferred funds to acquire real estate and stakes in Brazilian companies, totaling about 1 billion reais, according to the revenue service. Haddad said the funds are sent abroad and then brought back to Brazil as foreign direct investments that are tax-free.

The investigations have not yet determined whether major Brazilian organized criminal groups played a role, Alexandre Castilho, public prosecutor for the state of Sao Paulo, said at the press conference.

Brazil and the U.S. have been locked in trade and economic negotiations as they mend ties from a fight sparked by President Donald Trump’s imposition of 50% tariffs on goods from Latin America’s largest nation.

The U.S. leader has since eased the levies on Brazil’s biggest exports, but President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pushed for continued talks as he seeks full relief from the tariffs.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration designated several Latin American drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, a move that expands Washington’s ability to impose sanctions and share intelligence. Lula’s government has pushed back on calls to put the label on Brazilian criminal groups, on grounds they’re motivated by money rather than ideology.

Brazil’s government has targeted the financial operations of such organizations in prior operations. Haddad said the U.S. and Brazil could also work together to strengthen the monitoring of goods leaving their nations.

“It is natural that countries are more concerned about what enters their borders than what leaves,” he said. “But we have photos and videos of how weapons are arriving in Brazil.”

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With assistance from Beatriz Reis and Mariana Durao.

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