cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/4839200
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European chief prosecutor Laura Kövesi [said] the seized euros were gains from criminal efforts to ship goods into Europe on a “massive” scale without paying required duties and taxes.
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The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) last month charged two customs officers and four brokers suspected of participating in a scheme to import goods from China such as e-bikes while skirting customs payments and tax.
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“This is the largest seizure of containers in the EU to date,” Kövesi said. “We are targeting criminal networks organising massive imports of goods from China and evading customs duties and committing large-scale VAT [fraud].”
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VAT fraud had become “the most attractive” criminal activity in the EU, she said, often going hand in hand with customs duties fraud. “VAT frauds represent more than a half of the estimated damages in what we are investigating,” she said, adding that VAT fraud cost the EU an estimated €50bn per year.
She said that Chinese criminal groups were involved in most of the ongoing VAT fraud investigations, including the one in Greece, as they “would like to dominate all the supply chain production . . . and pay [a] minimum amount of money”.
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The port [of Pireus] itself is majority-owned by a subsidiary of Cosco, the Chinese state-backed shipping group. It first acquired its shares in 2008 during a series of sell-offs that international creditors pushed Athens to authorise following its €300bn international bailout.
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