The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has given “new impetus” to the Portuguese-born fraud investigation

Speaking to Lusa, the magistrate representing the country at the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO in English) underlined that “there are tens of millions of euros at risk of fraud in Portugal”. Your appearance.

“The process was pending with the Portuguese authorities. The investigation begins with the Tax Commission (AT) and the Ministry of Public Affairs (MP) of Coimbra, then, we see the old case pending in Porto MP. The processes were together, initially, two groups, the Judicial Police (PJ) and the AT worked in the process”, he recalled, explaining that the investigation was reported to the EPPO in mid-2021.

According to Jose Guevara, “not looking at criminal activities from a national perspective” is the fundamental act that led to today’s operation, which was carried out by the PJ nationwide, with around 100 house searches and 14 arrests from the country’s north to south and north, center and Almada region for criminal association, tax fraud. and crimes such as money laundering.

“When the European Public Prosecutor’s Office was reached, the investigation gained momentum. “The authorities themselves were debating whether the investigation should be held in Portugal because the damage to Portugal was not defined”, he continued, adding: “Without a European perspective, the process will go nowhere”.

EPPO information points to a worldwide VAT fraud of 2.2 billion euros and an operation in 14 Member States (Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Spain). As part of the investigation, searches were also conducted in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Sweden last October.

For Portugal’s European prosecutor, the “success” of the move was due to the fact that the authorities looked at the investigation in different ways by adopting a transnational perspective. Offenses spread across EPPO’s 22 member states and Hungary, Ireland, Sweden and Poland, with third countries including Albania, China, Mauritius, Serbia, Singapore, Switzerland, Turkey, UAE, United Kingdom and United States.

“Through the wide exchange of information we have in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, at the central level – through the financial analysts we have – we can carry out a permanent analysis of the different levels of its ‘tents’. The real depth of the network and operation”, he summarized. .

The report published by the EPPO stated that the investigation at the European level lasted about one and a half years and exposed “the largest carousel fraud in terms of VAT” in the EU, which “allowed the establishment of links between the suspected company. Portugal and around 9,000 other legal entities and more than 600 natural persons in different countries”.

Criminal activity involves the continuous constitution of a complex set of companies, most of which sell computer equipment on online platforms, and operate by taking the necessary steps to “enrich themselves” with the amount of VAT received from the sale of these products. End-customers, in a typical scheme of ‘missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud’, damage the EU’s coffers, BJ explained.