The “Criminal Operation” resulted in the constitution of 34 defendants, including players, agents or intermediaries, lawyers and sports leaders, of which 15 are legal persons, according to the Tax and Customs Authority (AT).
In a statement on the final balance of this operation, now released, the AT states that the measures adopted “are aimed at prosecuting tax crimes in the universe covered (one of the largest financial volumes in the Portuguese economy)”, indicating that these may have resulted in the loss of state revenue “in several million euros”.
The AT confirmed last week the raids, on suspicion of fraud and qualified fraud, of 67 search warrants, three of them to the SAD and 28 to law firms, accounting firms and sports agent companies in the field of which designated. as “Criminal Operation”.
On the same occasion, the AT detailed that the searches in the field of investigation of crimes related to the business of professional football implied the fulfillment of 67 search warrants, of which 36 were house search warrants and 31 search warrants were not domiciliary, three to Public Limited Companies. Desportivas (SAD) and 28 to law firms, accounting firms and sports agent companies.
“The facts investigated and that led to the initiation of the processes in question had their origin in various inspection procedures carried out since 2019, by the Large Taxpayers Unit, in the field of fiscal surveillance of the Sports Limited Companies Sector, specifically in order to base the analysis of businesses related to the universe of professional football”, explained AT.
In the information now disseminated, the tax authorities detail that the investigated businesses refer to various contractual realities “having had as their object, namely, the collection of amounts, even in terms of image rights, in this case, with the possible participation of non-resident agents”. / intermediaries in national territory, as well as the accounting of the invoicing not corresponding to real business”.
These operations, it is also mentioned, will have had the purpose of “hiding or hindering” the identification of the true final beneficiaries of the income, preventing them from paying taxes in Portugal or even imputing undue fiscal costs to the companies involved “as a way of reducing their taxation “.
The investigations will now proceed to the analysis “of the large volume of evidence seized, including accounting and bank documents, representation contracts, mobile phones, tablets, laptops and others”, with a view to determining the responsibilities actually obtained by the suspects.
Source: TSF
