O Minas Gerais Asset Recovery Interinstitutional Committee (Cira) unleashedthis morning Wednesday (8/5), an operation that aims to dismantle a criminal scheme tax evasion in taxes in the sector of meat industry and trade and by-products derived from animal slaughter.
In total, four preventive arrest warrants and 18 search and seizure warrants are being served on homes, accounting offices and companies participating in the scheme, in the cities of Uberaba and Delta, in the Triângulo Mineiro, in addition to the city of São José do Rio Preto , in Sao Paulo.
The investigations began through audit work by the State Revenue Service, which identified the operation of the criminal scheme and took the case to the Public Ministry for joint investigation.
According to Cira, the investigation showed that several people joined together to practice structured tax evasion, using dozens of companies to systematically issue ideologically false invoices.
“These cold notes were used to simulate commercial operations, cover up the acquisition of clandestine cattle in favor of slaughterhouses and cover up commercial operations carried out by third parties, shifting tax liability to shell companies. Furthermore, shell companies were used to covertly move hundreds of millions of reais over more than five years.”
The State Revenue Service also pointed out that the total number of fraudulent operations carried out by the group reached values exceeding R$1 billion. Some of the companies that were instrumentalized for tax evasion have already been fined by the State Revenue Service and owe around R$80 million to the state of Minas Gerais.
The group is being investigated for criminal association, tax evasion, ideological falsehood and money laundering.
Tags: Operation targets group accused withholding billion Minas Gerais
