Police may have uncovered scandalous tax evasion case

Prague, June 7 (CTK) - The police have levelled tax evasion charges against four representatives of the construction companies Viamont DSP and Energeticke a dopravni stavby (EDS), Czech Television (CT) said Thursday.

They committed the fraud when drawing money from a half-a-billion crown bid from the Reditelstvi silnic a dalnic company (The Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic, RSD) for the repair of roads and bridges in the Decin area, north Bohemia, CT said.

"We have tracked down the invoices for work which was probably not rendered in 2008-2009," local police spokeswoman Veronika Hysplerova has told CT.

The bid went to the company Viamont DSP, formerly owned by transport minister Ales Rebicek.

According to the police, Viamont fictitiously passed some work to EDS.

"The services worth some 50 million crowns were recorded in the relevant tax returns," Hysplerova said, adding that the state thus lost about 15 million crowns.

Patrik Oulicky, an influential member of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), co-owns EDS.

Oulicky has told CT he did not know anything about the case. He said he only joined EDS one year later.