The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed an indictment against Kemal Čaušević, the former director of the Indirect Taxation Authority of Bosnia and Herzegovina (UIO BiH).
Čaušević is charged with money laundering, bribe taking and abuse of office and authority. He’s co-defenders are Anes Sadiković and Sedinet Karić.
According to a press release from the BiH Prosecutor’s Office, in 2007, the then UIO BiH director Čaušević, got in touch with Sadiković and Karić, the owners of several companies that imported textile from Turkey, China and Hungary. Čaušević told them that he’d give favorable treatment to their companies, i.e. no detailed inspections of cargo, and customs would clear importers’ fake invoices or make them smaller in value. In exchange, Čaušević asked Sadiković and Karić to pay him 1,000 KM per each truckload of goods. Between 2007 and 2011, Sadikovićs’ and Karićs’ companies imported more than 1,700 truckloads of textile. According to the indictment, the two have paid Čaušević 1.72 million KM in all.
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“Because of unpaid custom duties, the state and BiH tax payers have been damaged for millions of KM,” stated the state prosecutors.
The indictment describes how Čaušević invested illicit gains into legal economy by buying a number of expensive real properties, worth around 1.2 million KM, in and around Sarajevo. The prosecutors petitioned the Court of BiH to order Čaušević to forfeit his property.
In 2013, CIN published a story about Čauševićs’ assets – over seven years he bought nine apartments and offices and 20,000 square meters of land. During that time his combined income was not nearly sufficient to account for the investments he made.
After the story was published, the court of BiH froze eleven properties. A year later he was arrested, and after three months he was released from detention.
The UIO’s former director is also charged with abuse of office in relation to a public bid for printing revenue tags. Čaušević approved a 200,000 KM restitution to a complaining bidder even though there were no grounds for it as no damage had been done.
