The money trail has borne fruit in Operation Pompeii, the judicial investigation opened against the owners of 16 large brothels in Spain. The magistrate José Luis Calama, instructor of the National High Court, has proposed this Tuesday to sit on the bench 32 involved in this enormous network of tax fraud, which allegedly hid from the Treasury part of the enormous benefits it obtained from the sale of drinks and the “alternate service passes” that were offered in stores distributed throughout eight provinces. Among the establishments under suspicion are the Flower’s club, one of the largest brothels in Madrid; and the Riviera, in Castelldefels (Barcelona), already demolished, but which was the largest brothel in the country for years.
The judge, who attributes 119 tax offenses to the defendants, estimates the fraud at more than 111 million euros, “in concept of unpaid VAT, Corporation Tax and IRPF tax payments.” According to the indictment issued this Tuesday, the suspects were organized into six subplots: five of them were dedicated to the exploitation of the hostess clubs that they had under their control – these were headed by the owners: Antonio Herrero; Jose Vera; Angel Crispin Gilaranz; Jose Moreno Gomez; Santos Perez Vargas; and José Arsenio Pérez Vieitez, alias President—; and the sixth, led by Jesús María Larrañaga, dealt with the “income concealment operation”.
According to Calama, Larrañaga “showed up at the clubs, talked to their owners, explained their tax problem and offered them the chance to circumvent it thanks to Larratruk SL”, a company he managed. To do this, according to the summary, he installed some dataphones that the brothels used to charge customers. The brothels thus loaded the credits into bank accounts of the Larrañaga company, which acted as a screen “to hide the true recipient of the payment made,” according to the investigating judge.
In the words of the magistrate, Larratruk thus provided an “intermediation” service, which not only benefited the brothels, but also those who went to the brothels. Because, when customers paid by card at these premises, the “names or data related” to the brothels did not appear in the extracts, but the Larrañaga company was listed as a creditor.
10% surcharge
Card payment was also associated with an extra commission for the customer. According to the judge, he was charged a 10% surcharge, which was then shared out by the plot “at the time of reckoning.” 6.5% was kept by Larrañaga and the other 3.5% by the owners of the establishment where the transaction had taken place. To justify this amount, the investigators point out that the brothel then billed Larratruk SL “for concepts unrelated to the true nature of the transaction.” A simulated concept that was often listed as “lease”, says the judge.
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“Once we know the figures of the commissions that Larratruk took and comparing the billing figures with those declared, great differences are noticed. Which allows us to infer that very high figures would have been hidden from the Treasury, ”says Calama in his order, where he adds:“ The income per card derived from ‘passes [del servicio de alterne]’ go to a shared account, [a la que tenía acceso los burdeles]. Of this income, amounts are withdrawn that appear to be unreported. Only the amount that corresponds to the club is declared for the extra cost applied to this payment method, and this is covered up by misleading denominations.
This investigation began in 2014 after a complaint from the National High Court Prosecutor’s Office for crimes of human trafficking, illegal human trafficking, money laundering, criminal organization and related to prostitution.
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