For years, they issued ordinary invoices, but in reality they ran a criminal group that caused the state millions of euros in losses. An investigator from the Financial Police Unit of the Office for the Fight Against Organized Crime (Úrad boja proti organizovanej kriminalite, or ÚBOK) concluded a large-scale investigation and recommended that charges be filed against 18 individuals.
According to the investigation, the organized group had been operating in Slovakia since at least 2015, spanning five regions of the country. Their activities caused losses to the state budget totaling nearly €3.4 million. Seventeen of the eighteen suspects are also charged with establishing and maintaining a criminal organization.
How the scheme worked
The fraud was based on the creation of a network of controlled companies that issued fictitious (dummy) invoices in exchange for monetary compensation. Other, genuinely operating firms, as previously agreed, included these documents in their accounting records.
This allowed them to unjustifiably inflate their expenses and file claims for value-added tax (VAT) refunds that had never actually been paid. In this way, the companies illegally reduced their tax liabilities, while the money ended up in the pockets of those involved in the scheme. If you do business in Slovakia, it’s important to know how to verify the reliability of a business partner so you don’t become part of such schemes.
Not Just Invoices: Forged Seals and “Ghost Employees”
The criminal activity was not limited to fictitious invoices. According to the Slovak police, some of the accused went further by manufacturing and using forged seals from five notary offices and the municipal administration of one of the cities.
These forged documents were used for several purposes:
- Obtaining certificates for electronic signatures.
- Making changes to the Commercial Register (Obchodný register).
This allowed the fraudsters to list nonexistent individuals—or real people who were completely unaware of their involvement in the business—as founders or directors of companies. This made it difficult to trace the actual owners and ultimate beneficiaries of the criminal scheme.
What Charges Have Been Filed and What Happens Next
According to the investigation’s findings, the total amount of tax evasion amounted to nearly €3.4 million. In addition, the group illegally filed VAT refund claims totaling over €22,000.
The investigator forwarded the case materials to the prosecutor’s office with a recommendation to bring charges against all 18 suspects. They are charged with a range of crimes:
- Forming, organizing, and supporting a criminal group.
- Large-scale tax crimes.
- Forgery of official documents, seals, and stamps.
- Falsification of business and commercial accounting records.
The defendants’ fate will now be decided by the prosecutor, who must decide whether to refer the case to court.
