Detectives of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine exposed a large-scale scheme of manufacturing and selling counterfeit alcoholic beverages with fake excise tax stamps.

Established that the director of a company in Vinnytsia region which has a license to manufacture vodka products together with the founder and other persons set up the production of alcoholic beverages at the plant's production facilities. The alcoholic beverages were produced in large volumes, pasted with counterfeit excise stamps and sold for cash in bulk and retail.

This led to excise and value added tax evasion on a particularly large scale.

Detectives of the ESBU conducted 8 searches in production, warehouse and retail premises. They seized 75,000 bottles of counterfeit alcoholic beverages with excise tax stamps that have obvious signs of forgery about 25 tons of unaccounted for alcohol, 15 tons of finished but not yet packaged alcohol-containing products, a large number of excise tax stamps with signs of forgery more than 8,000 liters of finished vodka products packaged in plastic containers, draft records and other material evidence.

The total estimated value of the seized products is about UAH 10 million.

During the search of the production facilities the absence of a permanent representative of the supervisory authority - the State Tax Service (STS) - was recorded which may have contributed to the commission of a criminal offense of illegal production of alcoholic beverages.

The pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceedings under Part 2 Art. 204 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal manufacture, storage, sale or transportation with intent to sell excisable goods) and Part 3 Art. 212 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (tax evasion) is being conducted by detectives of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine under the procedural supervision of prosecutors of the Prosecutor General's Office.