- Joint Customs Operation Bellerophon discovered 18 million euro of VAT fraud in the EU
- The operation was led by Italian Customs with support from OLAF and eight other Member States
- The operation focused on potential evasion of import duties and VAT for goods imported under customs procedure 42
- Attempts to abuse customs procedure 42 were found through missing trader schemes, mainly on the China-Greece-Italy route
- Control activities took place between June 5 and 23, 2023, and identified missing traders and undervalued imports
- Post-operational phase consisted of audits on the final consignees of the goods in Italy
- A debriefing meeting was held to discuss the results and future cooperation
- Two shipments of counterfeit goods were also seized during the operation, including hats, clothing items, and cigarette packs.
Source: anti-fraud.ec.europa.eu
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
