The Meat Fraud Scandal
Tax evasion is a soaring phenomenon in the Romanian foodstuffs sector. Fraud practices have now extended from fruit, vegetables and cereals to meat.
Corina Cristea, 13.03.2014, 12:20
Romania’s DIICOT prosecutors, specialized in investigating and countering organized crime and terrorism, have searched over 100 homes in 18 counties in Romania, placing numerous people in custody on remand. The move was aimed at taking down two criminal groups comprising 80 people and specializing in tax evasion, money laundering, circulation of spoiled meat and influence peddling.
According to prosecutors, the members of the groups allegedly used Romanian companies to buy VAT-free meat and eggs from the Netherlands, Poland, Great Britain and Germany. The merchandise was subsequently sold to the end client, either on the black market, way below its market value, or after adding the VAT.
The groups therefore mounted illegal competition against lawful meat traders, who performed the same kind of activity under the law. Another kind of fraud refers to the purchase of merchandise from other EU Member States.
The members of the criminal groups made fictitious deliveries to dummy companies in Bulgaria, Hungary or Cyprus, so as to spare the Romanian meat traders from paying VAT, although the merchandise was actually sold on the Romanian market, without being registered into financial records.
The group’s modus operandi also included deliveries by leading meat traders on the Romanian market to Bulgarian or Hungarian companies, wherefrom the meat was brought back into the country via shell companies, which then disappeared overnight. The merchandise was resold on the internal market without its proper transcription into financial records.
Prosecutors say the prejudice exceeds 15 million euros. Meanwhile, the spoiled meat scare has put authorities on high alert. The spoiled meat was supposedly sent to slaughterhouses, where it was mixed with other types of meat and then sold on the market. Over 230 tons of meat have been withdrawn from the market following inspections in storehouses in Bucharest and other counties carried out by the National Authority for Consumer Protection.
According to the head of the authority, most irregularities were reported in a meat storage area in Iasi, north-eastern Romania: “We found 13.6 tons of chicken wings expired since November 2013 and another five 20-ton lorries fully loaded with mackerel that was found to be substandard. We also seized 300 tons of pig brains with modified organoleptic characteristics. All these products ended up on the shelves of supermarkets”.
Prosecutors suspect employees of the Customs Authority and Consumer Protection Inspectorates to have acted as accessories to the fraud, facilitating both illegal imports and the introduction of spoiled meat on the market.
