MADRID: A Spanish militant cell funded itself through tax fraud on chicken, cheese and chocolate sold in Denmark, according to an investigation published Tuesday led by non-profit European newsroom Correctiv.
The cell had raised at least eight million euros ($9 million) through the scheme since 2005 and spent it sending 24 Moroccans and two Spaniards to Syria, Mali and Libya to fight for Daesh, said online newspaper El Confidencial, a Correctiv member.
Six members of the cell based in Melilla, a speck of Spanish territory on the north coast of Africa, were arrested in 2014, a spokesman for the Guardia Civil police force told AFP.
A judicial investigation into the group’s activities is still underway, he added.
Through contacts with militants in Denmark, the group formed ties with 42 mainly Danish firms and managed to put its members or supporters in senior company positions over the years, according to the El Confidencial report.
The cell used loopholes in European law to not pay value-added tax (VAT) on the food products sold by these firms, using a complex network of shell companies.
VAT fraud sees criminal groups embezzle 50 billion euros a year intended for state coffers in the European Union, said Correctiv, a collective of 42 European media outlets.
Danish VAT food fraud funded Spanish militant cell: report
Danish VAT food fraud funded Spanish militant cell: report
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
