CENTRAL ANTI-CORRUPTION BUREAU Verdict in a Large-Scale VAT Fraud Case - News

The indictment included charges against 29 individuals in an investigation concerning the activities of an organized criminal group involved in VAT fraud.

Fictitious Business Transactions

Officers of the Regional Office of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau in Rzeszów conducted a complex and multi-threaded investigation into economic crime between 2018 and 2025. The preparatory proceedings concerned the activities of an organized criminal group whose members developed a mechanism for VAT fraud. The scheme involved acting as intermediaries in fictitious trade transactions by issuing, re-invoicing, and reselling invoices documenting transactions that had never actually taken place.

Members of the group obtained fictitious purchase and sales invoices for goods from entrepreneurs operating throughout the country. The invoices were also issued for foreign entities that did not, in fact, exist.

In total, officers of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau detained 39 individuals during the entire investigation. International cooperation mechanisms were used in the proceedings, dozens of locations across the country were searched, and accounting documentation as well as electronic data carriers were secured. The collected evidence comprised several hundred volumes of case files.

Conviction

The prosecutor from the Podkarpackie Branch of the Department for Organized Crime and Corruption of the National Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rzeszów charged the defendants with, among other offenses, directing and participating in an organized criminal group, as well as using false invoices with a total value of nearly PLN 100 million in order to fraudulently obtain more than PLN 17 million in VAT refunds.

On April 30, 2026, the Regional Court in Przemyśl convicted 13 individuals, including the leader of the criminal group. The cases concerning the remaining defendants were separated into independent proceedings.

CBA Press Team