PCDF investigates shell companies that withheld R$43.8 million

The Civil Police of the Federal District (PCDF), through the Police Station for the Repression of Crimes against the Tax Order (Dot) linked to the Department for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime (Decor), launched this Tuesday morning (2 /4), Operation Double Identity to execute nine search and seizure warrants against tax evaders in the Federal District.

The investigation indicated the existence of a specialized criminal group, which constituted grain companies using falsified public and private documents, mainly identity cards, using themselves in the “oranges” and “frontmen” scheme.

They open companies and simulate that goods pass through them, generating a tax debt that is not paid, as that company and its owners do not own assets.

One of the companies created by the group generated losses to the Federal District’s coffers of around R$43.8 million in updated values, according to the PCDF. The investigation showed that the criminal group has been operating in the Federal District for approximately a decade.

The group that makes up the criminal scheme is centered on a couple of businessmen from the state of Minas Gerais, residents of the city of Uberlândia. Within the scheme there are people involved who also reside in the cities of Valparaíso de Goiás (GO) and Maringá (PR).

Minas, Goiás and Paraná

The procedures are carried out in the states of Minas Gerais, Goiás and Paraná, at the residence of the forgers, beneficiaries of the scheme and at the accounting office linked to the provision of services to the business couple of the criminal group.

The measures aim to collect more evidence of the crimes to reinforce the evidence already present in the investigation, to confirm the effective participation of each member of the criminal group, as well as to identify others involved behind the false identities in the opening of “notary” companies and others. beneficiaries of the tax evasion scheme.

Furthermore, the action aims to verify the path of values ​​arising from these spurious practices of tax evasion and the seizure of goods and values, with the aim of reimbursing the public coffers, in addition to concluding the ongoing investigation.

There are no searches for the addresses of the companies involved in the scheme, as they are all “ghosts”, that is, they only exist on paper.

Around 30 police officers from the Civil Police of the Federal District and teams from the Civil Police of Minas Gerais in Uberlândia and the Civil Police of Paraná in Maringá participated in the action.

The suspects are being investigated for the crimes of being part of a criminal organization or criminal association, tax evasion, document forgery, use of a false document and money laundering, and, if convicted, they could face up to 30 years in prison.

The name of the operation is an allusion to the fact that the main company targeted by the action is owned by two different people with the same qualification data in two different official documents.