{"id":435531,"date":"2025-09-16T14:52:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T12:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/09\/16\/biciclette-elettriche-cinesi-importate-in-ue-evadendo-i-dazi-sei-persone-incriminate-dalleppo\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T16:39:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T14:39:24","slug":"chinese-e-bikes-imported-into-the-eu-while-evading-taxes-eppo-charges-six-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/09\/16\/chinese-e-bikes-imported-into-the-eu-while-evading-taxes-eppo-charges-six-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese e-bikes imported into the EU while evading taxes. EPPO charges six people"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – The European Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) announced yesterday the indictment of six people<\/strong> for their alleged involvement in the fraudulent entry of Chinese goods<\/strong> (mainly bicycles and electric scooters) into the Greek port of Piraeus<\/strong>. At the end of June 2025, the EPPO seized 2,435 shipping containers, with goods valued at \u20ac250 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The European office’s indictment is part of the Calypso<\/strong><\/a> investigation, which this summer involved several EU ports. The European Chief Prosecutor, Laura Codru\u021ba K\u00f6vesi,<\/a> said: “Highly organised criminal networks have been specialising in this kind of fraud for years. Investigation Calypso sends these criminals a simple message: the rules of the game have changed, no more safe havens for you!”<\/p>\n

Following initial evidence gathered, Greek customs authorities charged two customs officers, one of whom was detained on Friday, with false certification, aiding and abetting. In addition, four customs brokers, already arrested by the Greek authorities in June, are among those detained. The fraudulent mechanism had been ongoing for at least eight years<\/strong>, causing an estimated loss of at least \u20ac350 million<\/strong> in customs duties and \u20ac450 million<\/strong> in VAT<\/strong>. EPPO estimated that, on average, only “10-15 percent of the actual number of e-bikes in a container were declared.” <\/strong><\/p>\n

The smugglers operated by routing goods through the port of Piraeus and undervaluing them on customs declarations. Customs operators, such as customs brokers or service providers, facilitated customs clearance to other EU countries<\/strong> through a mechanism designed to evade VAT payment. The aim was to secure an exemption from paying VAT through the application of Customs Procedure 42 (CP42), which allows an exemption if the goods are sold to other EU companies. In reality, these final buyers did not exist<\/strong> and were only used as frontmen to evade taxes. The goods were instead stored in illegal Chinese hubs and then distributed across the Union using false documents<\/strong>.\n<\/p>\n

Operation Calypso, held this summer, is the largest container seizure ever carried out in the EU.<\/strong> The investigation conducted by EPPO covers 14 countries:<\/strong> Bulgaria, China,<\/a> the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. The operational phase of Calypso started on 26 June with the execution of 101 searches<\/strong> at the offices of customs brokers. In their homes, approximately EUR 5.8 million<\/strong> was found (of which EUR 4.75 million was in Greece and the remainder in France and Spain), in various currencies, including Hong Kong dollars and euros,<\/strong> often stored in digital wallets and cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese products were evading VAT and taroiffs through a fraudulent mechanism at the port of Piraeus. Goods worth EUR 250 million blocked by the European authorities. European Chief Prosecutor Laura Codru\u021ba K\u00f6vesi: ‘The rules of the game have changed’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7891,"featured_media":245880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705],"tags":[32068,25916,29481,27493,32069],"class_list":["post-435531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-biciclette-elettriche-en","tag-cina-en","tag-frode-and","tag-greece-en","tag-pireo-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7891"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435532,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435531\/revisions\/435532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}