Lactalis was raided on suspicion of massive tax fraud

Lactalis and his boss were raided on Tuesday February 6 as part of a massive tax fraud case. According to information from the worldThe operations were carried out by police officers of the National Brigade for the Suppression of Tax Crime in at least three different locations: at the headquarters of the dairy giant in Laval (Mayenne), at its offices at Montparnasse Tower (Paris), as well as at the private mansion of the CEO, Emmanuel Besnier, 7 in^E Capital District.

Lactalis is the subject of a preliminary investigation by the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF) for aggravated tax fraud and aggravated tax fraud laundering. According to judicial sources, his tax agency may have allowed him to escape “Several hundred million euros” tax “The installations are high level, very intelligent and very modern”, another source comments. When contacted, Lactalis management indicated that the search “gone in peace”By specifying that they “Part of the process is dealing with old facts.”. According to our information, they belong to the period 2009-2020.

The PNF investigation was launched in 2018 following press revelations. in a row, media, Abdo, the day And Mediapart It revealed that the world’s leading dairy products group, founded in Laval in 1933, has several financial subsidiaries in Belgium and Luxembourg, suspected of artificially siphoning off the group’s profits to reduce its tax base in France.

In 2020, the investigation site declared For the period 2013-2018 alone, 220 million euros is estimated to be a French public financial loss.

Parallel tax checks

The PNF also received condemnation in 2019 from the Confederation Paysen, which has long criticized the multinational company for its practices, which, according to it, are responsible for destroying the balance of the dairy sector. The agricultural union accused the industrial group “set up a particularly complex intra-group re-invoicing system as well as a fictitious share purchase system”.

A source close to the investigation indicated that the investigation “At this stage Emmanuel Besnier’s personal taxation is not concerned”. But the group’s reference shareholder, who controls the company with his brother, Jean-Michel, and his sister, Marie, is no less central in this regard, because of the close overlap between the family’s holding companies and the company itself. “Since the group is highly concentrated in the hands of a few shareholders, the investigation is also interested in the head of the company”

Indicates a judicial source.

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