Milan Kilian
Reporter of the Pilsen region
write me
More than 25 million were to be stolen from the state by businessmen from Pilsen, who made money by supplying the Czech Republic with cheap employees from the east and collected payments for their work, but no longer paid taxes. The main suspect was arrested by the task force. Police charged two men aged 45 and 50, the older of whom ended up in custody, and a 53-year-old woman.
Illustrative photo.
| Photo: Deník/Lukáš Kaboň
Police officers from the Department of Economic Crime and members of the General Directorate of Customs, the Pilsen Investigation Department, collaborated on the case for more than a year. “During the implementation, five persons suspected of committing the particularly serious crime of undercutting tax, fee and similar mandatory payments were detained. The two main suspects were detained by the intervention unit,” informed police spokeswoman Dagmar Brožová.
According to the police, the criminal activity of the party from Pilsen consisted in the fact that the suspects supplied labor to various manufacturing companies, which consisted mainly of people from Eastern Europe. They then collected payments including value added tax for their work. In order to get rid of the obligation to pay tax, they created a chain of special-purpose companies, in whose statutory bodies they installed persons in the position of so-called white horses. They then transferred the tax liability to these companies through fictitious tax documents, where the tax became irrecoverable. They then kept the collected tax for their own use, thereby causing damage to the Czech Republic of more than 25 million crowns.
“As part of the implementation, 11 house searches and searches of other premises were carried out, in which more than 70 police officers and customs officers participated. During these actions, a lot of evidentiary material was secured, such as special purpose company stamps, fictitious tax documents, computer technology and other things important for criminal proceedings,” stated Brožová.
They robbed the state of more than a billion in deals with Chinese goods, now the cage has closed
Criminal prosecutions were eventually opened against three suspects – a 53-year-old woman and men aged 50 and 45. The High Commissioner accused them of committing a particularly serious crime of evasion of tax, fee and similar compulsory payment. The two accused were released after completing the procedural steps. The older of the men was taken into custody by the court based on the proposal of the public prosecutor, because there was a reasonable fear that he could influence witnesses and co-accused who had not yet been heard, or otherwise frustrate the criminal prosecution. The accused face a prison sentence of up to ten years.
“As part of the criminal proceedings, a search was also made for proceeds from criminal activity, but it was not possible to directly identify them. However, it was found that the accused owns real estate worth at least 22 million crowns. Due to this fact, these properties were secured as a replacement value. The secured real estate could then be used to at least partially compensate for the damage caused,” explained the police spokeswoman.
