The Ouagadougou public prosecutor's office announces for this May 18, 2021 the judgment of the alleged perpetrators of tax fraud involving more than 16 billion FCFA.

Following the arrest by the national police of four individuals for tax evasion, forgery and use of forgery in private writing and money laundering last Tuesday, May 11, 2021, the prosecutor of Faso, near the high court of Ouagadougou, leaves a press release announcing their judgment.

On March 12, 2021, the Director General of Taxes seized my Public Prosecutor's Office which houses the judicial center specialized in the repression of economic and financial offenses of a complaint against the managers of three (03) companies for acts of tax evasion. It appears from the complaint that after noting significant value added tax (VAT) deductions transmitted on behalf of its clients by one of the companies involved, the Investigations and Research Department fiscal suspected VAT fraud on the part of this company which had only been created on March 07, 2019. A tax investigation carried out to verify these suspicions revealed that the three companies in question, which are in reality the property of a single person, resorted to false invoices from their customers to evade payment of their taxes, in particular VAT, corporate tax and that on industrial and commercial profits.

This fraud would have caused a shortfall for the public treasury in terms of simple rights of an amount of six billion five hundred fifty-nine million five hundred seventy-three thousand eight hundred and forty-three (6,559,573,843) CFA francs.

The two defendants will be brought before the trial court of the judicial center specializing in the repression of economic crimes. Regarding the fifty-nine (59) companies that took advantage of the forgeries committed by the defendants to evade payment of their taxes, they will eventually be prosecuted for money laundering.