ANAF accuses six companies of forming criminal group for tax evasion

During 2014-2015, the Fiscal Administration Authority (ANAF) inspectors have investigated a case of tax evasion, upon completion of which the DIICOT prosecutors have been notified, who have opened a criminal file for those involved, according to a press release from the institution. On Thursday the searches were conducted at the premises of the companies AMBIENT SA, ARABESQUE SRL, SAWA SA, MM INDUSTRY SRL, MATCRIS CONCEPT SRL and OKAPI SRL, hotnews.ro reports.

The six companies are headed by well known Romanian businessmen. Among them is Ion Ciolan, shareholder of Ambient SA Sibiu, a close person to President Klaus Iohannis. In an interview with the newspaper ‘Turnul Sfatului’ in April 2013, Ciolan spoke of his relationship of ‘friendship’ with Klaus Iohannis, and of a close relationship between their wives.

According to the release, the searches were made by inspectors of the Directorate General for Tax Fraud and by DIICOT prosecutors – Territorial Service Oradea. The managers and associates of the six companies are subject to a DIICOT criminal file.

ANAF reveals that “there is reasonable suspicion that the representatives of the mentioned companies, along with managers of some ghost companies, have constituted an organized criminal group specialized in criminal offenses of tax evasion by creating a transactional circuit with no real economic meaning, whose only purpose was to avoid the payment of contributions to the state budget.”

ANAF claims that the six companies have unlawfully decreased the VAT for payment and the profit tax, the total damage caused to the state budget amounting to RON 50,029,306 (approx. EUR 11,100,000).