An Italian importer of stainless steel coil has had €950,000 ($980,260) of bank accounts frozen by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). The company is currently under investigation for potential customs duty evasion.

Two companies are currently facing scrutiny for allegedly providing inaccurate information regarding the origin of their products to the customs agency in Ferrara. In October last year, the companies declared that 110 steel imports were produced in South Korea when their origin was in fact China.

“By doing so, the companies benefited from customs duty exemptions on goods from South Korea, evading the payment of nearly €2.4 million in additional customs duties introduced by the EU’s 2019 anti-dumping regulation. Further inquiries uncovered an additional 60 import operations carried out by one of the companies under investigation, with the same ‘modus operandi’, causing an estimated damage of €950,000 in customs duties,” EPPO reveals in a note seen by Kallanish.

With the current order, the two companies combined now have more than €3.3 million in frozen assets.