(Luxembourg, 30 October 2025) – At the request of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Berlin (Germany), 105 searches were carried out yesterday in Poland, in a probe into a criminal organisation importing damaged cars from Switzerland to Poland via Germany, while evading custom duties and VAT.
The investigative measures were conducted by 200 police officers in several regions in Poland, at transport companies, customs declarants, repair shops and resellers, as well as in residences of suspects. The police questioned 30 suspects and heard 20 witnesses, and executed eight freezing orders. A total of 32 cars were seized.
According to the investigation, Swiss companies, mostly led by Polish or Swiss-Polish directors, buy the damaged cars from Swiss insurance companies via online platforms, and then organise their transport to Poland, via Germany, to be repaired in auto repair shops. The suspects declare the imports at customs offices either at the Swiss-German border or at the German-Polish border. They are believed to have used forged declarations of origin falsely claiming that the vehicles were originally assembled in the EU, in order to fraudulently benefit from a customs exemption. In addition, the members of the criminal network are suspected of having issued fake invoices for the cars, in order to declare a lower value at German customs offices – thus evading additional customs duties and also import VAT.
Based on the evidence, the vehicles are then sold in Poland, using a network of resellers under the organisation’s control. It is estimated that more than 27 000 cars were sold using this scheme, causing more than €10 million in damage to the EU and the national budgets.
The investigative measures were carried out by nine Regional Police Headquarters – Department for Combating Economic Crime (Komenda Wojewódzka Policji – Wydział do Walki z Przestępczością Gospodarczą) in Radom, Lublin, Białystok, Łódź, Rzeszów, Wrocław, Katowice, Poznań and Kielce, as well as the Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Warsaw. Additional support was provided by eight officers from Germany’s Main Customs Office (Hauptzollamt) in Frankfurt (Oder) and Customs Investigation Offices (Zollfahndungsamt) Berlin-Brandenburg and Stuttgart.
All persons concerned are presumed innocent until proven guilty in the competent courts of law.
The EPPO is the independent public prosecution office of the European Union. It is responsible for investigating, prosecuting and bringing to judgment crimes against the financial interests of the EU.