(Luxembourg, 5 June 2025) – The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Munich (Germany) has secured two further convictions in an investigation into a large-scale VAT fraud involving fraudulent VoIP, with an estimated damage of €100 million.
On 2 June 2025, the Landshut Regional Court (Landgericht Landshut) convicted two more members of the criminal organisation under investigation, one for organised VAT fraud, and the other for aiding. With these latest verdicts, the total number of individuals convicted in this case, codenamed “Cuba”, rises to ten.
The convicted individuals were involved in fraudulent trading of VoIP, exploiting VAT rules to evade tax payments. The court considered that the actions of the convicted individual resulted in an estimated damage of around €10 million in unpaid VAT. The overall fraudulent scheme is presumably much bigger, with an estimated damage of €100 million.
The court sentenced one defendant to four years and nine months’ imprisonment, including a former conviction, and confiscated €67 000. The other defendant was sentenced to ten months of imprisonment on probation.
It is understood that the defendants were part of a network that organised a fraudulent chain of missing traders, which would vanish without fulfilling their tax obligations. Other companies in the fraudulent chain would subsequently claim VAT reimbursements from the national tax authorities. Some of the forged invoices used by the criminal organisation referred Cuba as the destination of the VoIP services, which were entirely fictitious.
The investigation leading to this conviction counted on the support of the Tax Investigation Office in Leipzig (Steuerfahndung Leipzig).
The EPPO is the independent public prosecution office of the European Union. It is responsible for investigating, prosecuting, and bringing to judgment crimes against the financial interests of the EU.