Translated material
VAT in packaging
Capital investigators uncovered a “factory” for the theft of budget funds
The Main Investigation Department (GID) of the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate, as Vremya Novostey learned, sent a criminal case against the organizers of a major tax scam to the Moscow City Court. In the dock will be the former general director of Voyage LLC Tamerlan Sidakov, the chief accountant of the same company Alla Zubareva and financial director Vadim Karpenko. All of them are accused of fraud and legalization of funds acquired as a result of a crime. In addition, Sidakov is charged with creating a criminal community, and Zubareva and Karpenko are charged with participating in it.According to investigators, businessmen organized an extensive network of shell companies, with the help of which, under the pretext of partial reimbursement of value added tax (VAT), they stole more than 215 million rubles from the state budget. According to the Tax Code, part of the manufactured goods (dairy products, linseed oil, printed materials, children's toys, medical equipment, etc.) are subject to VAT at a reduced rate - 10%, and not 18. Since the full amount of VAT, as a rule, is already included in the cost of raw materials and work, then producers of preferential goods after their sale have the right to compensation from the budget for the difference of 8%. According to the investigation, the accused tried to take advantage of this - their companies actually did not produce anything, but only created the appearance of activity in order to fabricate the documents necessary to claim money from the budget.
According to the prosecution, Vladikavkaz native Tamerlan Sidakov “invented and developed the criminal scheme” in mid-2005. Then he was listed as the general director and chief accountant of Voyage LLC. This company was engaged in the supply of alcohol and actually worked in this area, although its turnover was relatively small. At some point, according to the investigation, Mr. Sidakov decided to use it for VAT fraud. As follows from the case materials, with the help of a number of his employees and partners, the investigation into which is still ongoing, he prepared several fake contracts. According to one, Voyage allegedly purchased TD Garant-Alko LLC for 100 million rubles. a batch of cardboard for the manufacture of bottle packaging. It followed from the second agreement that at the same time Voyage allegedly sold Factoria LLC for 100 million rubles. your bill, which at that time was not subject to VAT. Thus, as the investigation believes, the appearance was created that Voyage earned money on the bill, and then spent it on raw materials for packaging and its manufacture.
To confirm this with financial documents, the accused, according to investigators, simultaneously took out a so-called short loan from one of the banks for approximately the same amount - for just one day. The money was returned to the bank, but during this time the scammers, as follows from the case, “drove” it through the accounts of a number of companies, imitating payments. In addition, under the pretext of supposedly having their own money, the Voyage managers received real payment orders signed by the unsuspecting general directors of the Garant-Alco and Factoria companies, although in fact, in the end, no transactions were concluded with them.
As a result, without actually buying, selling or producing anything, the accused, according to investigators, collected documents that they allegedly produced a batch of the same printed products that belong to the category of preferential goods. On their basis, a package of financial and economic documents was prepared and submitted to the tax office, according to which Voyage claimed a refund from the budget for part of the VAT amounting to more than 15.5 million rubles. Having received the money, Sidakov kept more than 2.8 million rubles for himself. and about 13 million rubles. paid Voyage's debt to the budget for excise taxes.
In December 2005, according to the investigation, Sidakov, using a similar scheme using the details of the same LLC TD Garant-Alko and Factoria, tried to receive almost 18 million more rubles from the budget. But this time the scam failed. “At the end of 2006, the head of the tax inspectorate was replaced,” Lieutenant Colonel of Justice Alexander Bryantsev, senior investigator for especially important cases of the State Investigative Directorate, told Vremya Novostey. -- He carefully studied the submitted documents and discovered that Voyage had already received a VAT refund on the same grounds less than two months ago. The fact that a small company produced another huge batch of packaging in such a short period seemed strange and aroused suspicion.”
Voyage was refused payment of money, and the tax authorities transferred the materials of their audit to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The operatives studied the documents for a long time and in May 2007 decided to wiretap Sidakov’s phone, and investigator Bryantsev opened a case of attempted theft of budget funds. Over four months of surveillance, the detectives found out that the fraud with bottle boxes was far from the only one, and that together with Sidakov there was a whole group operating that brought operations for illegal VAT refunds literally to a stream. According to the investigation, it also included Alla Zubareva, Vadim Karpenko, Dmitry Gladshtein, Gennady Shiryaev, Akhshar Dzotov, Alan Dabaev and Soslan Salkazanov.
During the investigation, it was found that the roles in the group were clearly distributed. Thus, Sidakov, as follows from the case, “was the leader and developer of criminal schemes,” and he had two “deputies” - the former head of the department of the Interregional Inspectorate for Largest Taxpayers (MIFTS) No. 3 Shiryaev and businessman Gladshtein.
Shiryaev, according to the prosecution, established contacts with “unidentified officials” of various tax and law enforcement agencies and banks, acted as an expert on tax issues and organized the preparation of false documents. Gladstein, as the investigation believes, was responsible for “a group that included unidentified officials of the Balashakha Federal Tax Service Inspectorate”, conducted transactions using the Bank-to-Client banking system, submitted false documents to banks, and also looked for and rented, mainly in Balashikha, non-residential premises for one-day companies, which allegedly were engaged in the production of a wide variety of goods. Zubareva, according to the investigation, was responsible for accounting - she kept documentation for fictitious companies, collected and compiled invoices, invoices, payment documents, certificates and other papers confirming allegedly production activities, and Karpenko, Dzotov, Dabaev and Salkazanov, together with unidentified persons formed a group” that directly prepared certain false documents.
As investigators found out, for the sake of conspiracy, Sidakov developed a special terminology for telephone conversations between accomplices, and discussed particularly important points in the Ossetian language. For example, the “Bank-client” system was called an “instrument,” and the chain of fly-by-night companies was called a “union of 15 republics.” He also “developed and conducted a thorough briefing” with each “subordinate,” instructing them to “ignore calls to law enforcement agencies, hide their location and residence, and in cases of arrest, give knowingly false explanations and testimony or refuse to testify.”
As follows from the case materials, Sidakov and his accomplices bought about 40 front companies in Balashikha near Moscow, which were assigned the role of “manufacturers.” Thus, PC Trapezia LLC and Rikomp LLC, according to documents, allegedly produced and sold flaxseed oil, Balkom LLC - the fermented milk drink Alpine Tan, and Spetselitkomplekt LLC was engaged in printing. During the investigation, it was established that “none of the companies conducted any financial, economic or production activities, but acted with only one goal - to obtain a VAT refund using false documents.”
Thus, according to preliminary estimates of experts, in 2006-2007 alone, Sidakov’s group received about 215 million rubles from the budget, which were then transferred through a chain of shell companies and legalized.
“When we raided Sidakov’s place with a search, he apparently thought that the claims against him were only related to Voyage, and he voluntarily handed over the documents,” said investigator Bryantsev. - And when he realized that we knew almost everything, he faked a heart attack and began calling his accomplices. As a result, he was taken for questioning to the Main Investigation Department in an ambulance. By court decision he was arrested. After this, Sidakov refused to give any testimony and during the entire investigation he never signed a single document. By the way, some other members of his group were not very scared then and for another two months they continued the scam they had started earlier, receiving several more million rubles from the budget.”
That is why the main investigation has not yet been completed, and the cases against other members of the group were separated into separate proceedings. According to the investigation, Shiryaev and Gladstein, having learned about the initiation of a criminal case, fled abroad and were put on the international wanted list. Dzotov, Dabaev and Salkazanov were put on the federal wanted list. Recently, Salkazanova was detained in the Krasnodar region and taken to Moscow, where he was also charged. In the near future he will finish studying the case materials, and it will be sent to court.
In addition, the Moscow Region State Investigative Directorate recently opened a criminal case of negligence against the former head of the documentary audit department of the Balashikha tax inspectorate, Zaurbek Sidakov (namesake and fellow countryman of the general director of Voyage). According to the investigation, he conducted on-site inspections of the companies of his fellow countryman Tamerlan Sidakov, signed acts and put his signature, including for witnesses. The taxman has not yet been charged, but he has already been summoned for questioning, during which he explained that all the acts he signed are legal. However, experts, according to the investigation, established that the signatures of the witnesses were affixed by the hand of the tax official himself.