Un-shadowing of the excisable product market: a number of illegal production facilities have been exposed

Press service of the State Tax Service of Ukraine, published 28 February 2020 at 09:36 Chapter: News

Employees of the Department of Strategic Investigations jointly with investigators of the Main Investigation Department of the National Police with participation of employees of the Excisable Goods Turnover and Taxation Control Department of the State Tax Service have exposed a number of offenses within the framework of the Government’s counteraction against the shadow market of alcohol and products.

Thus, the clandestine warehouse for bottling the counterfeit alcohol has been exposed in the territory of the official factory-producer in Kharkiv region; 30 thousand bottles with vodka pasted with the counterfeit excise tax stamps, alcohol in the “bag-in-box” (volume 10  liters each) in the amount of 872 packs and 108 counterfeit excise duty stamps have been seized.

3 units of the “bag-in-box” alcohol bottling equipment and 5 bottled alcohol production lines have been seized in order to prevent further mass production and transfer of the counterfeit alcohol to the market by the production facilities of this factory-producer.

In addition, scheme for production and sale of the counterfeit excise tax stamps of Ukraine, as well as the production and sale of the counterfeit elite alcohol products of foreign trade brands (whiskey: “Jack Daniels”, “Monkey”, vodka: “Absolute”, “Gray Goose”, “Finland”, “Jelzin” and others) using counterfeit excise stamps has been exposed in Odessa region.

Group of individuals who set up the clandestine production of elite alcohol products using foreign trademarks has been exposed as a result of proceeded measures. Counterfeit excise tax stamps of Ukraine were used during the sale of “alcohol”. The ready-made products were sold through outlets in markets, as well as wholesale parties by the order.

More than 12 thousand pieces of the counterfeit excise tax stamps of Ukraine, 368 liters of the counterfeit elite alcohol beverages, more than 2.5 tons of alcohol and nearly 54 thousand packs of tobacco products totaling 2.6 million UAH have been seized from illicit turnover.

In addition, the STS prevented the sale of a large batch of smuggled cigarettes across the territory of Ukraine.

As follows, the production line of unprocessed tobacco products, 7 tons of raw materials (tobacco), more than 80.000 packs of ready-made products (cigarettes without filter) and excise tax stamps of the Republic of Moldova have been exposed and seized in Chernivtsi region. Total amount of seized products is 5.7 million UAH.

Raw materials for the production of cigarettes were smuggled to the territory of Ukraine from the Republic of Moldova. It was processed and packed up in Chernivtsi region, furtherly it was sold through the retail chains in Bukovyn, Khmelnytskyi and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. In addition, a part of was smuggled to the Republic of Romania.

“At present, un-shadowing of the excisable product market and its turnover is a priority for the STS. In this direction we cooperate with the law enforcement agencies. Together we make every effort. Those who conduct production and sale of the counterfeit will not feel at ease. We will not allow them to steal from the budget” – emphasized Chairman of the STS Serhii Verlanov.