Wind farm: Customs denounced a maneuver of import under-invoicing

Customs initiated a criminal case before the Federal Court of Caleta Olivia, Santa Cruz, to investigate a maneuver of over-invoicing of imports for the construction of a wind farm in the northern area of the province.

According to what was detailed, the complaint was initiated after the control body led by Guillermo Michel detected irregularities in the importation of 27 wind generators from Germany.

In view of this situation, Customs requested information from its European counterpart and, based on the documentation submitted by the German Customs Service's crime office, a substantial difference was found between the declared values.

While the documentation submitted in Argentina stated that the amount of the import was USD 46 million, the information provided by Germany showed that it had been carried out for 27 million euros (equivalent to USD 32 million), a difference of USD 14 million in over-invoicing.

In addition, the German customs crime office reported that after these operations the company was dissolved in Germany. Customs denounced the Argentine company for aggravated smuggling and for the use of adulterated or apocryphal documents.

Also, in its capacity as plaintiff, it reiterated the request for the indictment of the company's directors and requested the preventive seizure of the wind farms to ensure the tax credit. Finally, the requested measures were brought to the attention of the National Secretariat of Energy so that, within the framework of its competences, it may take administrative action with respect to the company.

Customs focus on the import of wind farms

From the analysis of wind farm imports from 2017 to date, it emerges that, out of USD 1,856 million of wind farm imports, USD 1,120 were transactions re-invoiced from a third country, equivalent to 60%.

The main jurisdictions from where imports were re-invoiced were Denmark, Hong Kong, Germany and Uruguay (96%).