A house in Portugal to donate to a little girl, 58,000 euros deposited in an account, also in Portugal, in the name of one of her younger brothers, land bought in Romania or even “walls” of branded clothing in their home in Vienna. It is this lifestyle that the police discovered while investigating a Viennese family who, officially, had only received an RSA.
It all starts with a traffic check in 2013. In a car, three men work in construction, but one of them is in an irregular situation. He will have to return home to Romania. Then, in 2014, a construction site inspection revealed a hidden business: twelve employees of the same company were involved. Finally, in January 2015, a man close to this family, then behind bars, asked for a sentence modification on the grounds that he had taken a job with a construction company. However, the contract is fictitious. Investigations (wiretapping, banking demands, etc.) then carried out on rogatory letters relating to money laundering, tax evasion and undercover work, all in an organized gang, would make it possible to prove that one man was responsible for these fraudulent company
“I have taken advantage of everything that is in society”
Between 2013 and 2015, he founded three construction companies successively. The first is announced only by its name. others in the name of relatives. “I found the sites and managed the teams. But all the cash drawn was distributed among the workers,” explains this father of four, while denying himself the ability to be the mastermind. “The fact that you make all the decisions, for other companies, makes you the actual manager,” slides Chief Dejean.
“I was not the boss and they were aware of the risks! Nothing is regulated in turn, ”he explains. “I, no, I was never the principal!” “He returns one of my ‘straw’ managers, who must now pay back 160,000 euros to the tax authorities. ‘My family asked me to, so I did! ‘ But the money was not mine. We went to the bank every Saturday to give it to him. The money distributed, according to The manager’s statements, on the workers, paid up to 5,000 euros a month, but were not declared.
For nearly three years, these three companies, which employ the same workers in succession, will generate more than one million euros in turnover. But no one would be declared to the tax authorities and no annual balance sheet would be drawn up despite the “hiring” of a “rather open-minded” retired accountant whose job it was to determine the payslips. In the end, the couple declared an income of only between 4 and 5,000 euros per year.
Mysterious round trip to Portugal
In short, I made use of everything that was in the community. You send your children to school, you go to the doctor, you go on the road, you go so far as to receive RSA when all this is financed by social security contributions, taxes and all that you never pay despite 70,000 euros in annual income, “the president analyzes. Still There is a great mystery: a one-day trip to Portugal made by this contractor’s wife, the day after the latter’s arrest. “I went to see his sister, who was not feeling well,” asserts the accused, who has long denied this explicit trip. The wiretap leads to the withdrawal of the money, a treasure that is promptly buried somewhere in Portugal.
Ultimately, the court rejected the organized gang’s motive for all of the defendants. Business manager Christophe Lourenco was sentenced to two years in prison, including a 14-month suspended sentence. His wife 10 months suspended. Both are banned from running a company for the next 10 years, in addition to a €15,000 fine and a forfeiture of up to €153,000. The accomplice directors, Frédéric Lourenco and Stevens da Cunha, were sentenced to 12 months in prison including a 6-month suspended sentence. As for the fifth accused, he was sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment, suspended. The three also have ten-year management bans.
