Operation "Convoy"

• More than 300 Agency officials have appeared in 62 locations after discovering a network of fraudulent sales with false invoices and simulated operations

• The operation has led to the beginning of inspection actions in relation to 48 companies and 21 related individuals.

• The actions originate from previous investigations that have made it possible to understand the fraud mechanisms used by certain taxpayers.                             

July 10, 2024.- The Tax Agency has today started a coordinated operation in eight autonomous communities against tax fraud in the sector of the purchase and sale of wooden pallets. The operation, called 'Convoy', entails the start of inspection checks on 48 companies and 21 related individuals (partners, administrators and people in the family environment), through the presence of more than 300 Agency officials in 62 locations.

The deployed device reaches locations located in Andalusia (14), Aragón (1), Castilla-La Mancha (8), Castilla y León (1), Catalonia (5), Galicia (1), Madrid (20), and Comunidad Valencian (12).

The 'Convoy' operation has been coordinated by the Inspection Department of the Tax Agency, with the participation of more than 230 officials from the Inspection Area, including personnel from the Computer Audit Units, and more than 80 officials from the Surveillance Service. Customs, as well as with the support of police agents.

Pallets are a highly demanded logistics material for industrial and commercial activity; However, in recent years there has been a shortage of this material, causing supply problems worldwide. This caused a rise in prices that provided an incentive to commit tax fraud, with structures that have been maintained even despite the recent drop in the price of pallets.

As happened in some other European country, the Agency detected in Spain the existence of elaborate fraud schemes in the pallet sales sector, which led to setting this sector as the objective of this operation.

Hidden forms of merchandise supply

In previous investigations, the Inspection Area of ​​the Tax Agency detected the existence of undeclared sales by certain taxpayers who market pallets.

The progress of these investigations led to the discovery of a network of fraudulent sales with operations between various companies throughout the national territory, and made it possible to discover the hidden ways of supplying merchandise.

Therefore, this operation focuses its attention not only on those operators who buy merchandise 'black' and use false invoices to justify said purchases, but also on those operators who make undeclared sales and who have previously been supplied with pallets of hidden form.

External signs of wealth

Within the group of companies selected as the objective of this operation, a study has also been carried out on the partners who may present external signs of wealth not justified by the declared activities. This could be due to an emergence of hidden sales of the entity that were materializing in increases in the partners' assets.

Impersonations, a tool in the fight against tax fraud

Through the inspections carried out at the selected premises, the Agency has been able to access information of vital importance for carrying out the inspection work (documentation and actual existing accounting or auxiliary information, including computer information processing systems).

The inspections, which will continue to be carried out in the coming months based on this initial evidence collection, will allow the documentation obtained to be analyzed in order to regularize all non-compliance detected.

The AEAT Control Plan Guidelines for 2024 emphasize the need to maintain presence in those sectors and business models in which a high risk of the existence of an underground economy is seen, with special attention to the intensive use of cash. These Guidelines highlight that control actions will also be carried out on those taxpayers who declare an irregular or anomalous evolution of the amount of their inventories that is inconsistent with their declared activity, and indicates the possible existence of hidden sales.

Sectoral macro-operations

With operation 'Convoy' there are now 24 coordinated sectoral macro-operations deployed by the Agency in just over a decade. These actions, in addition to facilitating the detection and regularization of tax fraud, allow a dissuasive message to be transmitted to the groups involved in these practices, which have an impact on public coffers and seriously distort competition in the affected sector itself.