Joint investigation by Dutch FIOD and British HMRC into hiding money in a different country

In a Joint Investigation of the Dutch FIOD and the British fiscal investigation service HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) assets have been seized, worth more than 6,000,000 Euro. This joint investigation focuses on alleged tax fraud and money laundering committed by a 51-year-old Dutchman and his 46-year-old British wife. The woman was arrested at her home in the UK.

The couple owns a marketing company in the Manchester region. The suspicion is that the suspects committed tax fraud with their company via concealed constructions and by using offshore bank accounts in the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.

Their assumed illegally obtained profits have been laundered in the Netherlands, where the suspects own two houses, where they stay on a regular basis. Money laundering must be countered because of the improper use of the financial infrastructure by the suspects. Financial institutions, such as banks, play an important role in the fight against money laundering, for example by reporting unusual transactions.

Come to us before we come to you

By working jointly in this investigation, both the Netherlands and the UK want to demonstrate that they will take measures against the deposit of non-declared assets abroad. Good cooperation between countries is important in cases of tax evasion constructions, because this type of fraud often goes across the national borders.

Fraud is an undermining factor for the tax system, and by not paying taxes over non-declared assets abroad for many years, society is financially disadvantaged as a whole.

The investigative services, the Public Prosecution Service and the tax authorities have joined forces to tackle the international problem of non-declared foreign assets. The purpose is to jointly come to an integral and worldwide approach of this phenomenon. Otherwise suspects can adapt their structures so that they can continue to evade tax.

Information sources

The investigation was initiated in the Netherlands since it was there that the suspects withdrew more than 300,000 euro in cash by using credit cards which could be linked to offshore bank accounts.  The Dutch Tax and Customs Administration has information about payments which were made using foreign debit and credit cards. In the project ‘Debit & Credit Cards’ the Dutch authorities check whether the cards are linked to foreign assets and also check whether tax payers have declared these assets. Besides information about the above mentioned payments the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration, the FIOD and the Dutch Public Prosecution Office use other sources to identify people who hide their money in a different country. Recently the FIOD received data from more than 3.000 Dutch depositors in Switzerland.

Crime should not pay

The investigation teams has searched a house in England and two houses in the East of the Netherlands. In addition, the head office of the couple’s company in the Manchester region was searched, as well as their house in Austria. Besides the seizure of the books, bank accounts in the Netherlands and the UK, two villas in the Netherlands, a speedboat and expensive cars such as a Jaguar, a Bentley and a BMW were seized, because crime should not pay.