Carousel fraud and fictitious invoices emerge in dealings linked to liberal MEP

The scandal around the company affairs of the Renew Europe group’s vice-president erupted last summer. The authorities have now uncovered further suspicious cases involving foreign companies.

English POLITIKA 2022. JANUÁR 26. 12:40

Additional instances of suspected business abuses have come to light in the case of Hungarian liberal MEP Katalin Cseh. As V4NA reported earlier, the company linked to the Momentum party politician and her family, together with their business circle may have been operating as a network of companies that systemically and fraudulently accessed Hungarian development funds and EU subsidies. According to information published in the Hungarian press, the companies systematically collaborated to maximise profits by repeatedly relocating their headquarters and branch offices. These companies may have pocketed approximately 13 million euros in EU funding under suspicious circumstances.

The politician had previously called the scandal, which broke last summer, a lie on her social media page, adding that she would take the necessary legal action.

However, to date no mass legal proceedings for reparations or defamation of character have been initiated, the daily Magyar Nemzet points out, and provides new information in an article on the case of the liberal politician. The Hungarian news portal writes that the investigators of the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary (NAV) have recently expanded the network of companies linked to Katalin Cseh. According to the NAV, carousel fraud may have occurred with the involvement of a Czech company.

The Magyar Nemzet obtained information that the Hungarian authority had found that a Czech company called Bergman and Mulstein sro was in contact with the members of the network of companies connected to the politician, namely Pannania Nyomda, Mondat and Holotech Hungary Kft. The investigators came across several strange circumstances, one being the sale and purchase of two hologram production devices. Unusually, the purchase price paid by the Hungarian buyer, totalling more than one billion forints (approximately 2.77 million euros), was paid back in full to the buyer, Holotech Hungary Kft. The amount was returned in instalments by the seller, through a company that also belongs to the network.

The tax authority investigators also found that the invoices issued by the Czech company were used by Pannonia Nyomda and Holotech Kft. in applying for several EU tenders, as is evidnced by their serial numbers. The authority suspects that the two devices mentioned above were not purchased at all, or that the parties submitted fictitious invoices.

To clarify the case, the tax authority requested the prosecutor’s office to turn to its Czech counterpart for legal assistance, the daily writes. The Hungarian tax investigators are interested in Czech banking records, tax returns and various contracts. Based on the reports, NAV has ordered an investigation into the case on suspicion of budgetary fraud. OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, is also investigating the matter.

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