Police want to charge eight people with huge tax evasion

Prague, Feb 7 (CTK) - The Czech anti-corruption police have proposed that eight people be charged with tax evasion in connection with fuels trading, police squad spokesman Jaroslav Ibehej told CTK Thursday.

According to the police, six men and two women did not pay VAT of almost one billion crowns to the state.

If found quality, they all face up to ten years in prison for tax, fees and other obligatory payments evasion.

The police say the group was purchasing fuels from foreign companies in 2007-2009 that it declared as mineral oils. It imported the fuels from the neighbouring Austria and Germany as conditionally exempted from taxes.

Then the group distributed the fuels as diesel oil and petrol for considerably lower prices via a network of contracted companies that were established expediently for these purposes, with VAT included, Ibehej said on the police website.

The group then sold the diesel oil and petrol to petrol stations avoiding the tax payment, he added.

The gang imported several hundreds of fuel tanks to the Czech Republic with the capacity of some 30,000 litres on average each.

In May 2009, the police detained 12 people but they started prosecuting only eight of them. Policemen carried out 20 home searches and seized real estate, cars and cash of the accused worth some 65 million crowns.

"This case is one of the first within the whole country in which we have succeeded in revealing VAT evasion in the purchases of mineral oils from another EU member state," Ibehej said.