Mannheim (dpa / lsw) – Because he is said to have evaded taxes in the millions with bogus transactions in beer deliveries, a 54-year-old is on trial. As a board member of a company in the Rhine-Neckar region, he joined “various criminal groups” for this business, the Mannheim district court announced on Wednesday. The trial before an economic criminal court is scheduled to run until May 31.
The indictment accuses the accused of having faked beer imports from France and the Netherlands. The beer was therefore not imported to Germany, but ended up on the British black market. The tax authorities in France and the Netherlands escaped beer taxes totaling around one million euros.
The company in the Rhine-Neckar region also apparently delivered drinks and other goods to companies in Belgium from 2018 to 2021 – and presented this to the tax authorities as tax-free deliveries in the EU. In fact, the drinks were sold on the black market within the EU. According to the indictment, VAT of around 2.2 million euros was therefore not paid.