Environmental News Network: The same thing occurred again this past April, albeit on a larger scale, involving 22 people in the United Kingdom (13 in England, eight in Scotland, and one detained on an E.U. arrest warrant) as well as an unreported number so far in Germany. The investigation also overflowed into other E.U. countries, namely Belgium, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands.
In Germany, officials and tax investigators swept 230 offices and residences, including Deutsche Bank AG, Munich-based HVB Group (the second largest private German financial institution
and retail bank), and RWE AG, a German electric and natural gas public utility headquartered in Essen.
All detentions and raids across the European Union occurred on April 28 in an aggressive attempt to round up carbon emissions trading cheaters at every level. In this particular sweep, Germany is looking at 180 million euros ($239 million) in tax evasions by 150 individuals at 50 companies. In the United Kingdom, the Revenue & Customs office, or HMRC, targeted 81 sites.
The VAT tax varies according to the E.U. country levying it, and the product or the nature of the service delivered. Thus it is possible to buy carbon credits without the tax (or at a lower tax rate, i.e., Poland), and resell them in high-VAT countries.
The E.U. carbon emissions trading fraud is huge, but perhaps nothing compared to the potential for cheating that will become available in the United States once Waxman-Markey, or some similar scheme for reducing carbon emissions, emerges from the Senate to become law.