Police arrest 43, seize €520 million in Europe-wide investigation into VAT fraud scheme

Police across Europe arrested 43 people and seized 520 million euros ($547 million) in a European investigation into a criminal conspiracy to evade VAT through money laundering and mafia activity, the European public prosecutors' office (EPPO)and Italian police said on Thursday, as reported by Reuters on November 14.

The investigation concerns tax fraud in the trading of IT products and electronic devices within the EU and involves around 400 companies with 200 suspects, mainly in Italy and several European countries, but also in the United Arab Emirates.

According to European prosecutors, those arrested are also facing charges of facilitating the Naples-based mafia Camorra and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra by investing their profits in VAT fraud.

"It has been a while since we started to ring the alarm bell about dangerous organised crime groups’ heavy involvement in fraud to the EU budget. We now shed light on a first such big case," European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi said in a statement.

She added there was no division between "the world of the really bad and dangerous criminals smuggling drugs, trafficking people on one side; and the world of white-collar criminals, 'merely' corrupting and laundering money, on the other side".

Some of the arrests were made in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Bulgaria, EPPO said in a statement.

More than 160 searches were carried out throughout Italy and further searches and seizures were made in Spain, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, EPPO said.

Source: BNR