Extortion of millions of VAT
The CBA officers detained two members of an organised criminal group extorting VAT on a massive scale.
The group operated in numerous towns throughout Poland. Two further entrepreneurs involved in the case carried out their activities on the territory of the Śląskie voivodship. The officers of the Regional Office of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau in Katowice detained Mariusz W. and Tomasz H. against whom preventive measures were applied in the form of property surety in the amounts of PLN 50 and 100 thousand as well as police surveillance and a ban on leaving the country.
One of the threads of the investigation supervised by the VI Economic Crime Division of the District Prosecutor's Office in Katowice is being carried out into the activities of the organised criminal group involved in “carousel fraud” consisting in fictitious trading in steal. The loss incurred by the State Treasury due to the unpaid VAT amounts to PLN 30 million 890 thousand, as initially estimated.
The criminal offence involved fake commercial transactions in intra-community trading in steal in order to extort tax return. In the course of the investigation, the officers established that foreign companies operating on the territory of the Czech Republic were engaged in the illegal practices. The VAT imposed on steal products brought to Poland from the Czech Republic should be paid in Poland, but it did not work that way.
The perpetrators undertook activities which were supposed to frustrate the designation of the origin of the financial means obtained in that way, the so-called money laundering.
Public Information Division of the CBA