SAO PAULO (AFP) -- Brazilian police on Tuesday said they arrested 19 people including two Swiss bank employees allegedly involved in a tax-dodging financial network said to have cost the state more than half a billion dollars.

Federal Police Commissioner Ricardo Andrade Saadi called the operation a ""big coup.""
Those arrested were two Swiss bank workers, 10 Brazilian company chiefs, six suspected blackmarket money-changers and one Brazilian bank employee, he told reporters.
""The investigation is continuing and we don't want to hinder it,"" said Saadi, who declined to identify any of the suspects or institutions targeted. Another two wanted suspects, a Swiss citizen and a Brazilian, were out of the country, he said.
However, a spokesman in New York for the giant Swiss bank UBS, Doug Morris, told AFP: ""We have learned that a Swiss-based UBS employee has been arrested in Sao Paulo.""
He added: ""We are in contact with the Brazilian authorities. At this stage we cannot comment further.""