Customs fraud is no longer a faraway crime reserved for shady offshore importers. It could be riding right into your warehouse, on two wheels, from China, disguised as “metal parts.”
This week, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) turned its spotlight onto a case that smells of rubber tires and cooked invoices. With Rotterdam as the stage, and the suspects’ private residence and business address in North Brabant as the scene, FIOD agents searched and seized. Why? Because 25 containers of Chinese e-bikes were allegedly smuggled into the EU via Poland, hidden behind fake customs declarations.
The price tag of this “discount import trick”?
€1.8 million in unpaid anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties.
WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENED?
Let’s break it down for your risk radar:
- The product? E-bikes from China.
- The fraud? Lying to customs: declaring the containers held something cheaper, or not subject to duties.
- The route? Entering through Poland, then quietly distributed across EU markets.
- The financial damage? EU budget cheated out of millions.
- The regulatory hammer? EPPO + FIOD = European + Dutch joint enforcement muscle.
Why does this matter to you, a small business owner, importer, or even just someone in logistics or wholesale?
THIS ISN’T JUST THEIR PROBLEM, IT COULD BE YOURS
You don’t need to be a criminal to get caught in the mess. In the real world of micro and small enterprises, one “deal too good to be true” from a new supplier could drag your business into an investigation. Here's how:
| Risk Angle | Real-World Exposure |
|---|---|
| Customs Broker Risks | Do you blindly trust your broker's declarations? You shouldn't. |
| Supply Chain Integrity | If your Chinese supplier uses fraudulent channels, your goods may be part of the same pipeline. |
| AML and KYC | Did you vet your suppliers for money laundering exposure? Or just look at the price per unit? |
| Financial Blowback | If the EU recovers duties retroactively, you might find yourself footing the bill or having goods seized. |
XTROVERSO RISK TIP: DON’T OUTSOURCE YOUR CONSCIENCE
Yes, the paperwork is boring. Yes, you trust your supplier.
But in today’s Europe—that is not a defence.
- Do you know how your imported products are classified at customs?
- Have you performed a risk-screening on your key partners?
- Can you prove you’ve done due diligence if the authorities knock on your door?
Silence or ignorance is not compliance.
ZENTRIQ™ INSIGHT: OUR CHECKPOINTS WOULD HAVE CAUGHT THIS
At XTROVERSO, we run every supplier and partner through our ZENTRIQ™ Compliance Grid, where this case would have raised multiple red flags:
- Mismatch between invoice goods and HS codes?
- Below-market pricing unexplained?
- Import route complexity without transparency?
- No third-party AML check on intermediary?
Whether you use us or not, the lesson stands: every importer, even the small ones, needs governance.
Not for show. For survival.
THE WAY FORWARD: FROM NAÏVE TO AWARE
Here’s what we want every entrepreneur in NL to do after reading this:
- Re-check all import partners, especially new ones from high-risk countries.
- Stop relying on “my accountant handles that.” Your accountant isn’t a customs expert or an AML officer.
- Request a ZENTRIQ™ Supplier Verification Report or similar from your compliance team.
- Push for real GRC: Governance, Risk, and Compliance, every quarter. Not once a year.
FINAL WORD
This isn’t about e-bikes.
It’s about how fraud hides in plain sight and how easy it is to become an accidental accomplice.
Governance isn’t red tape. It’s your insurance against waking up to a FIOD search at your warehouse.
And remember: the people under investigation today were once “businessmen” with happy clients and cheap bikes.
Don’t let cheap be the most expensive word in your company’s vocabulary.