Brussels, 05/11/2009 (Agence Europe) - A two-and-a-half year prison term and fines totalling almost €50 million is the punishment imposed on an individual responsible for large scale fraud involving textiles imported from China and the evasion of several million euros in customs duties and VAT. On Thursday 5 November, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) uncovered the illegal activities in co-operation with the Austrian customs and partner services from several other EU member states.
The ruling by the Criminal Court (Landgericht) in Vienna of 27 October 2009 was based on a case brought by the public prosecutor's office in Vienna that followed investigations by OLAF and the Austrian customs investigations services.
The fraud scheme involved the importation of textiles from China and understated the value of the products in order to evade customs duties, and, secondly, the fraudsters also illegally evaded the payment of VAT. Small customs clearance agents were mainly used to do the customs clearance. The goods were subsequently cleared in the member state of arrival without paying the VAT and were then transported into another member state of destination, where the VAT would have had to be paid by the consignees. However, in this scheme the majority of consignees were either non-existent or disappeared from the scene after a short period in operation. Customs investigators also discovered a printing workshop where invoices were systematically forged. (L.C./transl.rh)