The Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) said it has arrested and detained four men in the Netherlands in a criminal investigation into fraud involving the purchase tax on cars and motorcycles (bpm).
Investigators searched six homes and two business premises around the country and seized “44 cars, physical and digital records, cell phones, computers, cash, bank accounts, one bitcoin and twenty expensive watches,” the FIOD said.
The FIOD suspects three of the men of using incorrect valuation reports that contained non-existent damages in bpm returns. The agency said possibly hundreds of declarations were filed, made by multiple companies, including the fourth man’s company.
It is expected that many millions of euros in purchase tax and between 2 and 3 million in sales tax were undercharged,” the FIOD writes.
Two of the men are suspected of intentionally filing incorrect sales tax returns. The criminal investigation was launched after a signal from the Tax and Customs Administration, the FIOD said.
The FIOD said action against bpm fraud is increasing and added: “More arrests are not ruled out.”
