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Feast of fraud

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Criminals gangs involved in the most complex “carousel” Value Added Tax frauds ever have made huge fortunes. Their deals are so big they have led to major distortions in official trade statistics on imports and exports between Ireland and Britain.
The scams rely on the way the EU’s taxation system works and have mainly centered on mobile phones and the central processing units that are the brains in computers.
Both are ideal for trafficking because there is a high demand for them and they are easy to transport — though in some cases revenue and customs staff have found they never leave a warehouse and only the paperwork “moves.”
“The whole mobile phone and computer chips sectors are clearly riddled with this fraud and in many cases the goods have been physically around the carousel so many times that the boxes are falling apart,” according to a spokesperson for Britain’s Customs and Excise.
The sheer numbers of transactions undertaken are often staggering.
“For example, sales to Ireland of Pentium 1.7GHz chips — the commodity of choice for many fraudsters — in the first six months of last year exceeded the total market for those chips in the continents of Africa, Europe and Asia,” the C&E spokesperson said.
Shipments of 14 tons of mobile phones in the scams are not unusual, according to British Customs, which would be enough to fill the cargo hold of a Boeing 747.
C&E says there is evidence some goods moved in and out of Britain over 35 times.
There are more than 80 criminal cases awaiting trial in Britain and more than 100 ongoing investigations. Many involved in the carousel chains give themselves away by lavish lifestyles with expensive cars, properties, yachts and other luxury items.
C&E said that in one case of a couple found guilty of orchestrating a

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