Police apprehend criminal group that evaded paying VAT worth at least EUR 826,000

During the investigation, authorities found evidence of a group of people using company data and accounts to create non-existent transactions. Seven individuals now face criminal liability, prosecutor’s office reports.

This June, prosecutor of Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Other Sectors presented charges to seven individuals in accordance with Part Three of Section 218 of the Criminal Law and Part Three of Section 195 of the same law. Two other persons now face charges in accordance with Part Three of Section 218 of the Criminal Law.
 

Evidence collected during the investigation proved that multiple individuals had gathered as a group and had used company information, payment details and current accounts to create factually non-existent transactions.
 

Suspects had submitted VAT declarations for January 2012 and January 2014 to the State Revenue Service. In those documents, suspects included data on non-existent transactions performed by seven fictive enterprises.
 

By using this scheme, suspects avoided paying VAT worth a total of EUR 826,337.96 to the state budget, thereby causing serious financial damage.
 

In addition, Latvian and foreign credit institutions were used to change the ownership and origin of this money and thereby gaining legalized funds worth EUR 728,660.18.
 

It should be added that another criminal process was separated from this one in accordance with Part Three of Section 218 of the Criminal Law and Part Three of Section 195 of the same law on possible illegal actions performed by a group to avoid tax payment and perform money laundering activities.
 

The separated criminal process has been sent to the State Revenue Service’s Finance Police.
 

In the interest of the investigation, no detailed information is released at this time.

BNN

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