Money laundering, smuggling, insurance and tax fraud: in Germany there is a market of fake persons behind which criminal organizations operating in the country hide. ARD explains how the system works:
It's dark, it smells musty, the hallways are full of trash. It is there that 60-year-old Tomek Z. lives, who opens the door naked to the waist and wearing flip-flops. He is from the Polish city of Legnica and is said to be the director of 13 companies throughout Germany, including a forwarding company registered in Berlin. But he himself has no idea about this, writes ARD in a report on the tax frauds perpetrated in the country.
The man told the German public-law media that he was once spoken to in front of a store. He didn't have money to buy a drink at that moment, but he wanted to get some. Therefore, he got into the car in which he was invited and arrived in Germany.
In Legnica, which is a four-hour drive from Berlin, another 11 heads of German commercial companies are registered. From there, they officially run 80 companies throughout Germany, many of which are in Berlin, writes ARD. Media reporters have found that the companies are from a variety of fields - car and real estate trading, construction, forwarding, security, electricity suppliers, as well as import and export companies. But - as the journalists' investigations also reveal - some of their bosses are long dead, others are missing. Many are alcoholics and homeless. They have never had anything to do with the business of the companies they are responsible for - they are fictitious persons who are unknowingly entered in the commercial registers in Germany.
There are thousands of impersonators
The Polish city of Legnica is not the only place recruiting surrogates for Germany. “They bring these people to Western Europe by bus," Ralf Simon, chief investigator in the Organized Crime Division of the Customs Criminal Service in Cologne, told ARD. In almost every major investigation, impersonators from Poland, Romania or Bulgaria appear. “We are talking about several thousand fake persons and fake companies", explains Simon. Their participation serves to cover up circumstances and cash flows, to hide profits and make investigations difficult, the expert points out.
The cover-up works particularly well when the impersonators are from other EU countries - because in this case the investigators cannot just go to Poland or Bulgaria to question people. They have to adhere to complex rules, follow the relevant procedures, provide translators. The process is lengthy and allows the scheme organizers to buy time.
Precisely because of this - according to the information of the German customs officers - a whole market has been formed in which professional intermediaries offer the services of fake persons. And the criminal organizations that develop their activities in Germany - mafia, clans, etc. - take advantage of it, writes ARD.
Professional mediators and notaries
In order for the Legnica proxies to officially become heads of German companies, they must first appear in front of a German notary: without his certification, a change in the management of a company is not possible. Notaries have to check the personal documents of the new boss, check the signatures and judge whether the person in front of them is even able to run a business.
ARD reporters have carried out several months of checking hundreds of notarial contracts in the German commercial registers. Thus, they found that in 70 contracts concluded on behalf of people from Legnica, the same translator - also from Legnica - was entered. According to the studies of the German public-law media, the so-called the translator is already a convicted criminal in Poland. He had accumulated half a million tax liabilities in Germany.
Tomek Z. also met this “translator" more than once: at a notary near Hamburg, as appears from the notarial contracts. However, Tomek Z. does not remember anything like that and does not hide from the reporters his surprise that a notary certified the contracts in which he is listed as a director of a company. “Isn't the notary a public official?" says Tomek Z. and admits that he was drunk the whole time. However, the notary has certified the documents.
The System
„Notaries, who are always the same, are part of the system - it cannot function without them,", a tax investigator from Baden-Württemberg, whose name ARD did not name, told ARD. Almost every day he dealt with fake persons from Eastern Europe.
„The system", which the investigator is talking about, is a complex and non-transparent network of companies. Officially, they are under the leadership of bosses from Eastern Europe. Their sole purpose, as the investigator points out, is “to rob people and harm the treasury". All this allows the organizers of the network, whose identity is hidden behind the impersonators, to commit serious crimes such as money laundering, smuggling, insurance fraud and tax evasion amounting to millions.
If the fraud is discovered, an investigation is first started against the responsible directors, i.e. the impersonators. While almost nothing can be done against the notaries included in the scheme - there is no legal basis.
Economic crime on a large scale
For Annegret Ritter-Victor from the European Public Prosecutor's Office, it is obvious that “organized criminal structures are increasingly turning to economic crime," as she tells ARD. Most recently, in a complex trial in Berlin, it turned out to be possible to send behind bars the organizers of a tax fraud with luxury cars and masks to protect against the coronavirus.
The damage caused amounts to 50 million euros. And in this case, a central role is played by a German notary, a complex network of companies and unsuspecting impersonators from Poland. According to the estimate of prosecutor Tobias Lubert from the European Public Prosecutor's Office, quoted by ARD, the damages amount to a total of 50-60 billion per year.