Prosecutor of the Special Department for Organized Crime, Economic Crime and Corruption within the Prosecutor's Office of BiH issued an indictment against a total of 36 natural and legal persons, which are alleged to have committed the criminal offense of Organized Crime under Article 250 of the CC BiH, the criminal offense of Tax Evasion under Article 210 of the CC BiH and Article 273 of the CC FBiH, in conjunction with the criminal offense of Money Laundering under Article 209 of the CC BiH, all in conjunction with Article 54 the Criminal Code of BiH.
The three first accused persons are as follows:
1. Fahrudin ČAGO, born on September 12, 1956 in the municipality of Zenica, where he resides, with prior convictions, citizen of BiH,
2. Smail MUJČINOVIĆ, born on September 17, 1960 in the municipality of Zenica, where he resides, citizen of BiH, and
3. "Čago Komerc" d.o.o. (Ltd.) Zenica - legal entity that is registered on the name of the owner Bahrudin Čago.
Apart from the aforementioned persons, prosecutor’s office indicted another 12 legal entities and 21 natural persons.
The first accused Fahrudin ČAGO is charged to have, during the period from the beginning of 2006 through to the end of October 2009, organized and managed an organized criminal group in terms of Article 1, Paragraph 2 of the CC BiH that consisted of all the above mentioned indicted persons. This group operated jointly with the intent of acquiring unlawful financial gain of greater value.
As alleged in the indictment, Fahrudin ČAGO registered the company "Čago komerc" d.o.o. Zenica formally to his brother Bahrudin ČAGO as the founder and owner, although he has really organized and managed the operations of the company, which dealt with the distribution of cigarettes in BiH through its own delivery vehicles.
Čago komerc" has distributed and sold one part of the obtained tobacco products - cigarettes of the Tobacco Factory Rovinj and Tobacco Factory Sarajevo, for cash delivering the goods to various customers, natural persons and legal entities, without issuing bills of sale which is not in line with Article 56 of the Law on VAT because the turnover was not recorded in books, and the cash from these sales of cigarettes was kept in “Čago komerc" d.o.o. Zenica and recorded in hidden - internal cashbooks. False invoices were made for these sales and addressed to the above-mentioned 12 accused legal entities, with falsely reported approved rebates and reduced sales price of cigarettes thus reducing the tax base. These false invoices were recorded in the books of "Čago komerc" as genuine. In this manner, the company "Čago komerc" generated fictitious traffic and did not act in accordance with the applicable provisions of the regulation on Value Added Tax and has used ill gained property of greater value in legal economic flows on the territory of BiH.
As alleged in the indictment, this organized criminal group was of good hierarchical structure with clear roles, where the main suspect as the organizer of the group Fahrudin Čago led it jointly with the director of the company "Čago komerc" d.o.o. Zenica, the second accused Smail MUJČINOVIĆ as his closest associate, who acted on his instructions and managed the operations of the company, while other members of the organized criminal group i.e. the accused employees of the company "Čago komerc", drafted documentation on fictitious transactions of cigarettes, led internal - hidden cashbooks and detected the accused legal entities to which the obligation to pay VAT was transferred on the basis of fictitious documentation made i.e. on the basis of alleged sale of goods (cigarettes).
In this manner the payment of obligations, required under the legislation of BiH and FBiH, was evaded i.e. VAT in the amount of 1,661,300.00 KM, and income taxes in the amount of KM 1,714,344.0, where the total amount equals 3.375.644.00 KM which was the amount of the damage caused to the budget of BiH and FBiH.
These accused persons and legal entities are alleged to have committed the criminal offense of Organized Crime under Article 250 CC BiH, the criminal offense of Tax Evasion under Article 210 of the CC of BiH and Article 273 of the CC FBiH in conjunction with the criminal offense of Money Laundering under Article 209 of the CC BiH, all in conjunction with Article 54 of the Criminal Code of BiH.
The indictment was forwarded to the Court of BiH.