Dutch prosecutors on Friday said three former employees of a company in the Netherlands were arrested on suspicious of laundering about $1.2 billion for an Indian client, AFP reported. However, the prosecutors did not name the companies involved.
The Dutch firm bought materials around the world for a company that had been laying a gas pipeline in India since 2006. The public prosecutor’s office said they suspect that the Dutch company would inflate the amounts on the invoices for the materials and services supplied.
The three, who were arrested on Tuesday, are accused of forging invoices for the company, Reuters said. The company acted as an “invoice duplicator”, allowing the Indian company to charge its customers twice, the prosecutor’s office statement said.
“The ‘profits’ earned in this way were subsequently creamed off via the Dutch company,” the statement said, according to AFP. “The losers were probably individual citizens in India, as the costs for the production of gas are passed on to the consumer.”
The profits were transferred through a network of businesses across the world before reaching a business owned by the Indian firm in Singapore, the statement said. The suspects allegedly received about $10 million for assisting in the money laundering.
Dutch investigators raided the premises of the company in Utrecht in central Netherlands in November 2017, AFP reported. An inspection of the company books raised suspicions.
“Facilitation of the laundering of billions originating abroad by Dutch companies is a serious matter,” the prosecutors said.
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