Aug
23
Major VAT fraud in Galician ports
Filed Under EN
Fish landing in the port of Vigo. (Photo: WFE)
Major VAT fraud in Galician ports
SPAIN
Friday, August 23, 2013, 03:30 (GMT + 9)
The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Pontevedra has opened an investigation into alleged criminal practices among port operators in Marin and Vigo, in Galicia. It is believed that in exchange for a commission, they did not declare certain sales of fish at the market to avoid paying the VAT.
While the first suspicion of the alleged bribe network involved the terminal port from Vigo, the Judicial Police extended the investigation to the port of Marín.
According to the newspaper El País, the complaint was lodged by the Tax Office in the Economic Crime Department against San Miguel cooperative in Marin for VAT fraud.
Several witnesses testified that illegal practices had been performed for several years in connivance with the shipowners.
At the moment, it is uncertain how many people could be involved in the crime under investigation.
There are indications that the network of collaborators had been operating for over three years, so that the VAT fraud could amount to several million Euros.
So far, it has been known that the port operators that had been bribed controlled the landings from the moment the boats were docked to offer the products to buyers without making them go through the markets.
During an inspection of the records at the headquarters and facilities of San Miguel cooperative in the port O Berbés in Vigo, the tax inspectors found black and red filing cabinets containing two kinds of statements, usually signed by the sellers.
The black filing cabinets contained blue invoices with the letterhead of the cooperative and the supplier’s complete identification, and the VAT seems to be declared in them. But in the cabinets labelled in red, the statements are white and, according to the prosecutor, the sales in “b” are collected in them, El País reported.
In these documents only the supplier is identified with a number and sometimes a signature can be seen. In addition, the name of the vessel is included as well as the landing date, the amounts of products and the price of the sale, but not the letterhead of San Miguel cooperative.
It is estimated that the hidden sales from the Tax Office totalled from EUR 5.1 million in 2008 to EUR 4.5 million in 2009 and EUR 4.9 million in 2010.
Fines for these acts could reach an amount that is seven times the amount defrauded.
The prosecutor asked the judge of Marin to call the three defendants to make statements:
- José Luis Santiago Pereira, president of the cooperative, who was charged with three crimes for the fiscal years 2008, 2009 and 2010 as the legal representative of the entity;
- Laureano Pesqueira Veiga, responsible for the entity offices in the fishing port O Berbés in Vigo;
Enrique Fernandez Ark, chief of auctioneers and sales in the same port. - The lawsuit argues that the person in charge of the port offices of the cooperative and the head of auctioneers “concocted the so-called sales notes/auto-statement sheets” in which signs of the parallel accounting and of the alleged tax fraud appear.
By Analia Murias
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com
Photo Courtesy of FIS Member World Fishing Exhibition (WFE-AQA)
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