VAT fraud network dismantled in Europe, 520 million euros seized

The network involves the Italian mafia. A VAT fraud network operating in Europe was dismantled, leading to the seizure of goods worth 520 million euros, we learned on Thursday from a judicial source, specifying that around forty arrest warrants had been issued. issued as part of the investigation.

At the request of the offices of the European Public Prosecutor's Office in Milan and Palermo, a judge of the Milan court took these measures aimed at repressing a “criminal association whose object is intra-community VAT fraud in the trade of IT products and the laundering of its profits”reports the prosecution in a press release. The investigation made it possible to estimate the amount of false invoices issued at 1.3 billion euros.

In addition to Italy, searches and seizures are still underway in the European Union countries affected by this fraud, notably in Spain, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and in the Netherlands, as well as in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, according to the same source.

50 billion euros per year

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni congratulated the investigators, saying the success of the operation demonstrated “the government's commitment to fighting tax evasion”valued in Italy at more than 80 billion euros each year, or nearly 4% of the country's gross domestic product.

Four of the people arrested on the basis of a European warrant as part of this operation, called “Moby Dick”, were in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Bulgaria. The Milan judge in charge of the case ordered the preventive seizure of property and sums of money amounting to more than 520 million euros. He held against the leaders of this network the aggravating circumstance of having “favored mafia criminal associations”.

So-called “carousel” VAT fraud costs the European Union nearly 50 billion euros per year, according to the latest available estimates from Europol. It involves several companies established in at least two EU member states. It consists of obtaining the deduction or reimbursement of the VAT relating to an intra-community supply of goods even though this VAT has not been remitted to the tax administration concerned.