Several suspects in the "Klap" operation signed plea agreements, and will compensate the state with several hundred thousand euros each, "Vijesti" has learned.
At the beginning of May, in operation "Klap", 21 people suspected of creating a criminal organization, prolonged criminal offense of tax and contribution evasion and causing false bankruptcy were arrested. As the Police Administration announced at the time, by making false invoices between several companies, they damaged the state for five million euros in tax liabilities and provided themselves with an illegal profit of 20 million euros. They are also accused of causing false bankruptcies. Criminal charges, as the Police Administration announced at the time, were filed against 24 people and 14 companies.
The Special State Prosecutor's Office did not respond to "Vijesta" when asked if and how many suspects from this operation signed plea agreements.
One of the suspects who is on the run, Dejan Lakić, announced in recent days that he was deceived, but he does not deny his business connection with the others. He also said that he has documentation and recordings about the involvement of the management of the Tax Administration in receiving fictitious invoices acknowledging VAT refunds for non-existent businesses, but he did not show them. He states that he also did business with companies backed by the family of Milo Đukanović and his partners, as well as that the Tax Office returned multimillion-dollar amounts of VAT to those companies without a legal basis. This was also claimed two days ago by DF MP Nebojša Medojević, and the Tax Office later denied it.
As previously reported by the Police Administration, the fraud in this case consisted in the fact that companies make fictitious invoices among themselves, which they then hand over to the Tax Administration and claim a refund of the difference in VAT. In this way, as they claim, they damaged the state for millions of dollars. The practice is for the Tax Administration to carry out a detailed control of that taxpayer after a request for a VAT refund, but this is not a legal obligation. That is, the Tax Office can accept that the submitted invoices are correct and approve the refund of the requested amount of VAT without checking. Controls by the Tax Administration usually last longer than 60 days, which is the legal deadline for refunding prepaid VAT.
It follows from the announcement of the prosecution that these companies were granted VAT refunds based on disputed invoices. Two days ago, the Tax Administration announced that they submitted all the documentation on this case to the prosecutor's office. It is not known whether the prosecution extended the investigation to Tax Administration officials who approved VAT refunds based on invoices that the prosecution claims are fictitious.
Two days ago, Medojević sent the media 45 invoices from 2016 and 2017, created between ten companies. Most of the directors and founders of these companies were arrested in the "Klap" operation. Among the founders and directors of two companies is Lakić, as well as members of his family. This indicates that the names of four more companies from the prosecution's report are missing. The disputed invoices refer to the companies "Full House", "A - KOP", "Reset", "PS Gradnja", "Arcadium", "Edge", "Lithium" (which changed its name to "Simzil"), "Slowmotion" (formerly called "IDS Studio"), "District Room" and "Warriors". In all these companies in the past years, only ten names were mentioned as founders and directors, who were constantly rotating in positions. Many companies have submitted tax returns for only one year, and two have gone bankrupt in the meantime - "Slowmotion" and "District Room". The company "Lithium" or now "Simzil" has not submitted a single tax return, while according to these invoices alone in 2017 it had an income of about 1,3 million euros. The company "A - KOP" has officially been in a continuous blockade since December 2013 with a constant increase in debt, and it has submitted financial reports for all years since then with multimillion-dollar revenues. All this points to the dubious business of this group.
In the action "Klap" on May 8, the suspects are Dejan Lakić, Vladan Dajković, the founder of the company "Fidija" Joko Blagojević (70), the director, founder and authorized representative of several companies, among which are "Arhimed" and the agency "MAMA" Nikola Dobričanin (40), the director of the tavern "Maruška" Vlatko Ražnatović (50), Dejan Petričević (36), Nataša Tvrdišić (45), Danijela Bošković (36), Aleksandar Ivanović (45), Boja n Petričević (36), Filip Lopičić (35), Tihomir Lakić (64), Dragoslav Lakić (57), Radomir Karadžić (39), Radovan Terzić (38) and Ivan Vuković (40). The following day, by order of the Special State Prosecutor's Office, TM, JV, PR, EK, Ž.M. were arrested. and M.Ć. and announced a search for Ž.F.
Their names have not been released.
Bonus video:
