CENTRAL ANTI-CORRUPTION BUREAU always in the interest of Poland The CBA has broken up the largest group extorting the VAT tax on trading in electronics - News

The officers of the Regional Office of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau in Białystok have detained 8 individuals in Lubuskie and Mazowieckie Voivodships. Among them were citizens of Poland and Ukraine, who operated within an organized crime group. The activities, in which over 120 CBA officers participated, consisted in simultaneous searches of over 40 locations related to the detainees on the territory of Lubuskie, Wielkopolskie, Pomorskie, and Mazowieckie Voivodships. In the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw, the detainees faced charges of participation in criminal activities of an organised crime group and falsification or use of invoices issued for large amounts.

The investigators established the structure and the scheme of operations of the international criminal group, which in the years 2012 - 2018 could lead to a VAT fraud of PLN 1.3 billion. The group consisted of both Polish and foreign citizens, including citizens of Denmark, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Russia, the United Kingdom, Latvia, China, Malaysia. Within the framework of international cooperation and in cooperation with foreign partners, the CBA officers carry out activities aimed at finding all members of the criminal group, their role in the criminal activity, as well as the final directions of financial flows. 

The investigators’ findings indicate that the group, operating within the framework of the so-called carousel schemes, committed fiscal offences aimed, in particular, at fraudulent extortion of undue refund of VAT on account of the fictitious trade in electronic equipment or understatement of tax liabilities. The group was also involved in money laundering.

Currently, the investigating team is interested in more than 1,000 companies, both Polish and foreign, while the files of the preparatory proceedings already number over 1,700 volumes. So far, 26 suspects have been charged in all threads, and property worth nearly PLN 150 million has been secured. 

Due to the multithreaded nature of the case and its extensive scope, the investigation is conducted jointly by the Regional Prosecutor's Office in Warsaw and the officers of the Regional Office of the CBA in Białystok, the metropolitan Central Bureau of Investigation, as well as the Customs and Tax Office in Warsaw. Each service has been investigating the threads within the disclosed tax “chains” in order to effectively bring about holding liable all those involved in the criminal practice.