They would have committed crimes of money laundering, against the public treasury and against workers' rights

 

The Tax Agency, in collaboration with the National Police, the Labour Inspectorate and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, dismantled a tax fraud scheme in Ibiza linked to a major hotel chain, with establishments in Ibiza, Mallorca and Prague. Over the past decade, the group has acquired forty hotel establishments with a market value of close to one billion euros. The possible fraud against the State's public treasury would exceed 14 million euros.

The operation, carried out on the last weekend of May 2010, involved 26 officials from the Tax Agency, seven labour inspectors, two anti-corruption prosecutors, the Ibiza Public Prosecutor's Office and the Economic Crimes Brigade of the Balearic Judicial Police. The fraud took place within a major hotel conglomerate that manages more than 70 hotels in Ibiza, Mallorca and Prague. This hotel conglomerate operates more than 10,000 beds.

According to tour operators, this group had a turnover of around 36 million euros per year. However, it did not pay any amount corresponding to Corporate Tax or VAT. To avoid taxation, they used more than 300 different companies, whose registered offices were constantly changed, making it difficult to allocate business profits to any one company. The defrauded contributions would exceed 7,500,000 for Corporate Tax and 7,000,000 for VAT.

In parallel to the operation of the hotels, between 2001 and 2010 the group of companies acquired 40 hotels with a market value of close to one billion euros. For this acquisition, a large number of companies were established in which other Andorran companies participated, which contributed large sums of foreign currency for financing, thus giving rise to a possible crime of money laundering or self-laundering.

The Labour Inspectorate has also detected multiple large-scale crimes against workers and fraud in Social Security contributions. They set up several temporary employment agencies in the Czech Republic to recruit Romanian workers who were working irregularly in hotels.

All of the alleged crimes were supposedly planned and controlled by a single person, a prominent hotel entrepreneur, who is currently at the disposal of the courts.

The operation, called 'Trueno', has its origin in a report of a complaint from the Tax Agency, presented to the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in Madrid. For its part, the Labour Inspectorate informed the Ibiza Public Prosecutor's Office of the possible commission of crimes of illegal trafficking of labour and fraud against Social Security.

Media interested in images of the operation can contact the Press Office of the Tax Agency.