The court in Munich convicted four men, including a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the main suspect for this serious fraud.
All those convicted were part of an organized chain of illegal labor in the Upper Bavaria region. Numerous workers from a total of five construction companies were paid “on the black” for their work in high-rise construction. The joint investigative group, which acted on the order of the Prosecutor’s Office of Munich I and consisted of investigative officers of the Financial Control of Illegal Work Rosenheim and the Munich Tax Inspectorate, discovered damage to social protection funds and tax authorities of around nine million euros.
The main suspect is a 67-year-old construction entrepreneur from Bosnia and Herzegovina who, over the past nine years, founded five different construction companies, in which he only partially reported wages to employees for hours worked. The rest was paid in cash, i.e. in envelopes, in black.
In order to deceive the authorities, he constantly brought companies to bankruptcy, and then founded new ones, under other names, whose affairs were run by different “phantom” owners according to his instructions. As could be heard during the trial, from a professional forger of fictitious invoices from Berlin, he bought fake invoices in the amount of millions from non-existent subcontractors, in order to hide the massive outflow of money for the payment of salaries in the dark from his business documents.
He was sentenced to five years in prison by the judgment of the District Court in Munich, which became final today.
“He thereby caused damage to funds and tax authorities of around nine million euros. A long prison sentence is in line with his criminal activities,” said Marion Dirscherl, spokeswoman for the Rosenheim General Customs Administration.
Two of the “phantom” owners also received prison sentences: a 75-year-old Croatian was sentenced to one year and ten months in prison and a fine. The second “phantom” owner, a 29-year-old citizen of BiH, was sentenced to two years in prison and a huge fine.
The fourth person convicted is a friend of the main perpetrator, the owner of a Berlin company for fictitious invoices, who also helped with the planned relocation of the company’s headquarters and their “bankruptcies”. He was sentenced to four years and six months in prison for his contribution to the crime. This judgment is not yet final.
(TYPE/Source: Independent newspaper/Photo:Screenshot/bgland24.de | Illustration)
