A joint operation by the Tax Agency and the Guardia Civil

• The plot focused on the non-payment of VAT on the wholesale sale of the product through instrumental companies and front men.

• 21 arrests have been made and 61 high-end vehicles, two boats, and two million liters of product have been seized, and more than 300 bank accounts have been blocked, of the more than 1,000 analyzed.

• It is considered the biggest blow to organized crime associated with this energy sector

April 4, 2019 .- The Tax Agency and the Civil Guard, within the so-called 'Drake' operation, have dismantled two alleged criminal organizations that carried out their criminal activities in the food sector. hydrocarbons, mainly by fraudulently marketing large quantities of product wholesale, and which would have defrauded more than 150 million euros. The operation has been carried out in the provinces of Castellón, Valencia, Lleida, Girona and Madrid.

The way these alleged criminal groups proceeded basically consisted of the interposition of instrumental companies and front men, controlled by those responsible for them, through which they defrauded VAT in million-dollar amounts; Specifically, this operation would have revealed an estimated fraud of more than 150 million euros.

These instrumental entities appropriated the VAT quotas passed on to their clients in the marketing of gasoline and diesel fuel, mainly through the use of different tax evasion mechanisms.

Tax evasion and money laundering

Among the mechanisms used, it is worth highlighting the use of false billing to reduce the fees to be paid, the declaration of a sales volume lower than the real one and the presentation of declarations without income. The fraud was completed with the emptying of the assets of the entities that had to pay the tax.

This criminal operation, in addition to generating million-dollar fraud, distorts the sector, expelling those legitimate operators who cannot compete with the prices set by the companies that avoid paying the corresponding taxes. In turn, these companies act in concert following instructions from the criminal leadership, extending their criminal action and, consequently, systematically capturing a greater market share.

This way of acting allows us to ensure the sale of all the product that can be purchased in the national and international market, billing billions of euros in a single year, given that the positioning in the market was consolidated, precisely, by the permanent capacity to improve prices in relation to the competition as a whole.

At the same time, high profits were generated that were allegedly laundered by the criminal organizations themselves through corporate structures used for this purpose, finally investing them in real estate or positioning them in third countries. This operation has also been the subject of this investigation, in order to identify all the assets from fraudulent activity, and thus encircle these two criminal organizations, making it impossible to reproduce them.

Operation 'Drake' in figures

In addition to the more than 150 million euros of fraud detected, 21 people have been arrested in this operation, for which a total of 292 companies and 150 individuals have been investigated, analyzing 1,085 bank accounts and proceeding to search 22 addresses. 61 high-end vehicles, two boats and two million liters of product have also been seized, and the blocking of 347 bank accounts and 155 properties has been processed.

Fraud in this sector is especially relevant, precisely in this segment of marketing. The Tax Agency and the Civil Guard have been intensely investigating these criminal schemes since 2010, revealing hundreds of millions of fraud.

This joint operation by the Tax Agency and the Civil Guard represents the biggest blow ever dealt to organized crime associated with the hydrocarbon sector due to its incidence and positioning in the market, with these two dismantled criminal organizations being the most important that have acted in recent years. .

The investigation was carried out by the National Fraud Investigation Office (ONIF) of the Tax Agency and the Regional Inspection Unit of the Tax Agency in Madrid and by the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, under the direction of the Court Central Investigation No. 4 and the Court of Instruction No. 5 of Getafe (Madrid).

In the operation established for the exploitation of the 'Drake' operation, 50 officials from the ONIF and the Regional Inspection Units of the Tax Agency in Madrid, Valencia and Catalonia have participated, in addition to members of the Central Operational Unit, different units of intervention of the Civil Guard such as the Cynological Service, USECIC Madrid and investigation and citizen security units of the Civil Guard commands of Lérida, Madrid, Gerona, Castellón and Valencia.

Filming of records within the framework of operation 'Drake' (to download the video you must enter the following web address):

https://we.tl/t-XDWICUhc3W