A criminal organisation operating in Belgium, Germany, and five other European countries is suspected of evading €137 million in excise duties and committing VAT fraud amounting to €66 million.
This was disclosed in a statement released on Wednesday by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and the customs investigation offices in Hamburg and Hanover.
The group allegedly distributed “designer fuel,” chemically modified to incur lower taxes, through a complex network of triangular transactions between companies in Lithuania, Latvia, and Hungary.
The exact origin of these fuels has not yet been determined, although they are believed to have been imported into Germany via Poland, where they were falsely classified as lubricating oil.
Once in Germany, the products were reclassified as diesel, allowing the evasion of energy excise duties and obscuring the supply chain, making it difficult to trace the exact nature and origin of the products.
The EPPO reports that the criminal organisation employed various strategies to evade VAT and excise duties, including a network of now-defunct operators who created fake invoices for the alleged supply of diesel in Germany.
During raids, authorities seized evidence including two safes, cryptocurrencies, server rooms, Rolex watches, firearms, and ammunition.
