The Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency (Agenzia Dogane Monopoli) seized today €130 000 from a Sicilian business in an EPPO investigation. The company based in Palermo imported e-bikes from China and falsely declared the country of origin as Malaysia. By doing so, it evaded the payment of anti-dumping and countervailing duties at the height of €200 000 in total, of which €70 000 had been already recovered before with administrative proceedings.

Since the beginning of 2021, several international criminal groups in Germany and Estonia have been under investigation by the Hanover Customs Investigation Office, instructed by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (Hamburg office). More than 130 individual imports of luxury cars from outside the EU are being investigated, on suspicion of commercial and organised tax evasion.

Today, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) Naples office led an operation in Naples (Italy) against four companies and two individuals. The suspects imported e-bikes and spare parts from China and Turkey, and allegedly evaded custom anti-dumping and import VAT duties amounting to approximately €13 million.

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) signed a working arrangement today (2 February 2022) with the General Council of the Judiciary of Spain.

On Monday (24 January 2022), the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Lithuania referred a criminal case to the Vilnius Regional Court. Two officials of the Vilnius Territorial Customs road post in Šalčininkai are accused of abuse of office, and of assisting in the tobacco smuggling and illegal disposal of excise goods allegedly carried out by two citizens of the Republic of Belarus. All four are accused of acting as an organised group.

Today, the first court hearing of an EPPO case in Bulgaria took place in Sofia (Bulgaria) in the Specialised Criminal Court. The defendant, a General Expert working for the Bulgarian State Fund Agriculture (SFA), has been in custody since the beginning of September 2021 and has been brought to court for his first hearing in a case of bribery.

The Italian Customs Police and the Italian Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza) seized a shipment of nearly 30 tonnes of tobacco products of foreign manufacture at the Port of Trieste in November 2021. The shipment had come from Malawi and the tobacco was intended to be sold on the EU market European territory.

The College has appointed 1 new European Delegated Prosecutor in Bulgaria. Another candidate was rejected by the College for not meeting all the requirements set out in the EPPO Regulation.

Today, the Slovak office of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) led an operation in Slovakia and Czechia against four companies suspected of violating tax and customs regulations when importing consumer goods from third (non-EU) countries. The total damages are estimated at €48 million.