EPPO dismantles customs fraud ring operating at Liège Airport – €303 million in estimated damages

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) today, 28 March 2023, carried out ten searches in several locations in Belgium, including at Liège Airport, and arrested four suspects, during an operation against a customs fraud ring believed to have caused damages of at least €303 million in evaded tax.

During the operation, carried out with the support of Europol, the Belgium Customs and VAT Authorities and several branches of the Belgian Police, officers raided storage premises and offices at Liège Airport and in Zeebrugge, as well as private houses of the suspects in Ans (Alleur), Liège and Visé, seizing evidence and assets.

On the radar of the EPPO’s European Delegated Prosecutors in Brussels in this investigation, code-named ‘Silk Road’, are Chinese exporters suspected of having put in place a complex system to evade the payment of VAT on imported goods, using three Belgian private customs agencies and a number of fake companies in several EU Member States.

According to the investigation, the Belgian companies, acting as customs and VAT reliable representatives of the Chinese exporters, declared that the goods entering through Liège Airport – electronic equipment, toys and a myriad of accessories – were destined for other Member States, in order to benefit from a VAT import exemption based on the EU’s ‘Customs Procedure 42’ (CP42). 

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