The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has recently reported that it has uncovered a large-scale fraud scheme, organised by a band of mainland Chinese, Hungarian and Austrian citizens, who were found to have smuggled large quantities of textiles and shoes form mainland China into the EU.
However, the ruling of the Criminal Court of Vienna resulted in particularly severe penalties, including a two-and-a-half year prison term for one individual and fines totalling almost €50 million. The infringement consisted of evading several million euros in import tariffs by understating the value of the products and, separately, evading the payment of VAT.
As the investigation is still on-going and not many details have been made public, it is still unclear whether any of the goods concerned were transported via Hong Kong.
