Dreieich: Fraud with bogus companies | Rhine-Main

• fromAnnette Schlegl

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A trio who run a construction company in Dreieich evade sales tax of four million euros. For this, it sometimes imposes long prison sentences.

A trio evaded around four million euros in sales tax that the commercial criminal chamber of the Darmstadt Regional Court has now put behind bars for a few years. With the help of bogus companies, they brought invoices with a volume of more than 45 million euros into circulation without paying sales tax. The “business model” of the Offenbacher and the two Frankfurters who ran a construction company in Dreieich (Offenbach district) worked well for three years, then they hit the arm of the law.

The tax criminals had founded a large number of corporations through straw people since 2015. The bogus companies were liquidated by undertakers as soon as official investigations became apparent, said the Darmstadt public prosecutor. These were people who appeared with fake identities when buying the company or who subsequently went abroad.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, more than 100 suppliers and customers also used the invoices to obtain unjustified tax advantages and to enable their own employees to “work illegally”. One of these customers had been heard as a witness in front of the Economic Criminal Chamber and confirmed the allegations. All these entrepreneurs are now also expecting criminal proceedings and substantial back taxes.

Tax fraud goes undetected for several years

From 2016 to early 2019, the gang’s tax fraud went undetected. Then the investigative group of the Darmstadt tax investigation team caught on to them and uncovered the network-like structures. In March 2019, 200 tax investigators and police officers searched the suspects’ homes and offices at a total of 40 locations in Rhine-Main and southern Hesse.

The Economic Criminal Chamber sentenced the three defendants aged 28, 40 and 66 years to prison terms of four years, four years and nine months and five and a half years for evading sales tax in a gang. They had been in custody since the raid and had largely confessed in court, which was also taken into account when sentencing.

The searches in 2019 revealed assets of over one million euros in the trio. They were collected for the benefit of the state treasury. According to the Darmstadt public prosecutor, there was another suspect among the perpetrators. But he is fleeting and is wanted with an international arrest warrant.

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