The individuals have been charged with tax evasion in an organized group, Kristine Sutugina, the spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office, told LETA.
Acting in the interests of two corporate entities, they had been illegally concealing revenue from restaurants and cafes during the taxation period from January to June in 2014. The group had employed illegal software to alter the cash register data.
As a result, the state lost EUR 957,799 in unpaid taxes.
Gan Bei started repaying the tax debt in the summer and had by late December given back EUR 200,000 to the state budget.
In December 2014, several Gan Bei restaurants operating at shopping malls across Riga were searched as part of an investigation into a cash register tax evasion scheme. The company responsible for maintenance of the cash register had supplied the restaurants also with software for illegal manipulation with the cash register data to avoid payment of value-added tax (VAT).
The Finance Police of the Latvian State Revenue Service (VID) sent the Gan Bei tax fraud case to the prosecutor’s office in late December 2015, asking that criminal charges should be brought against nine individuals – seven Gan Bei employees and two people associated with a cash-register service company that had supplied illegal software.
The persons facing criminal prosecution in the case include five Gan Bei employees: accountants, IT specialists and cashiers, a CFO and a board member.
