Joint operation by the Tax Agency and the National Police

• Its breakage could cause the trains to derail, which is why, after the investigation, two warehouses located in Zaragoza have been inspected and one person has been arrested.

• When Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat Valenciana suspected them due to the little similarity they showed with the originals, the company under investigation issued a document that assured that they were authentic.

June 2, 2022.- Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency, in a joint operation with the National Police, and in collaboration with the European Anti-Fraud Office, has intervened a ton of counterfeit railway bearings, supplied by a company from Zaragoza to Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat Valenciana through a public tender. The use of these bearings would have put the safety of the trains and the passengers themselves at risk, since their breakage would cause the carriages to derail.

The investigation began following a complaint filed by a company, which warned of the acquisition of 160 bearings that were supposedly of its brand by Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat Valenciana, but that had been provided by another company that participated in the contest. public and that obtained the tender for the same price as them.

When Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat Valenciana received the first order of 80 bearings, they were suspicious due to the little similarity that existed between those received and those that they had originals of that same brand, so they contacted the investigated company, who They were sent a document that "confirmed" its authenticity.

Because the document received gave rise to suspicions of falsehood, Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat Valenciana decided to contact the original company, who, with their own experts, confirmed the falsehood of the bearings, proceeding to file a complaint for infringement of the trademark and due to the high risk of falsifying pieces of this importance.

Irregular imports that contravene EU regulations

During the investigation of the company supplying the bearings, importing companies were warned that they had retention and destruction files at various European borders. These were irregular imports that contravened the regulations of the European Union in violation of trademarks.

With all this information, two warehouses in Zaragoza were inspected, a sample of the bearings sold to Ferrocarriles de la Generalitat Valenciana was found, and the 160 bearings (one ton) sold in Valencia were seized. One person has been arrested while another is being investigated for an alleged crime against industrial property and another for smuggling.

The Customs Surveillance operational units of the Tax Agency in Madrid and Zaragoza, the National Police and OLAF participated in the operation.