EU and Italian authorities are investigating suspected wide-scale tax fraud by Chinese criminal gangs importing goods via Greece’s largest port of Piraeus, a trade gateway between China and Europe, officials said.
“The VAT [value-added tax] is completely evaded, with enormous damage to the national tax authorities and to the community,” Fabio Botto, of the Italian Central Means of Payment Antifraud Office’s special investigative unit, said in an interview.
The suspected scam at Piraeus, part of China’s vast “One Belt, One Road” initiative, had cost Italy tens of millions of euros in unpaid VAT, although the total could be far higher as the investigation was not over, he said.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) confirmed it was working with Italy on the investigation, but declined to give details, citing confidentiality.
Botto said his agency had evidence that Chinese-owned firms run by the criminal groups were fraudulently avoiding import duties and VAT on large shipments of goods through Piraeus.
The groups import goods, often counterfeit clothing and footwear, and massively understate their value to EU customs to avoid import duties, he said, adding that they also lie about the firms that receive the goods, enabling them to avoid VAT.
Greece’s Financial Crime Unit is conducting a separate investigation into a suspected tax fraud case involving Chinese goods imported via Pireaus.
The Greek unit has had little contact with Italian and EU authorities and has not been informed about the wider investigation, an official there said.
China’s state-owned Cosco Shipping Holdings Ltd (中遠海運控股) owns a majority stake in the Piraeus Port Authority, which manages one container terminal, while a wholly owned Cosco subsidiary owns and manages two other terminals.
China wants to transform the port into its “gateway to Europe” under the initiative, which envisions a new “silk road” of land and sea routes with trading partners.
Botto and the Greek official said that neither investigation had evidence of any wrongdoing by Piraeus port authorities.
“The company has in its global operations consistently and strictly followed local and international laws and persevered to operate legally and compliantly,” Cosco said.
The port authority said it had not received any information about criminal groups using the port and added that it would alert authorities if it did.
It said it took all necessary measures to ensure that goods had customs supervision, it said.
“[The port authority] is under no circumstances responsible for conducting checks for illegal activities,” it said in a statement.
OLAF and national authorities have in recent years clamped down on customs loopholes used by Chinese smugglers, whose tax scams they estimate cost the EU billions of euros per year.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
RSS