Tax Agents find over one millions euros hidden in coolers and lunchboxes at Privilege.
Inspections of the Privilege nightclub during July as part of the Tax Agency’s ‘Chopin’ investigation have uncovered more than a million euros stuffed into cool bags, lunch boxes and even shoeboxes according to a report carried by Spanish Daily El Pais.
The operation, which followed an investigation of the Amnesia nightclub a few weeks before, was aimed at both the Space and Privilege clubs. It is understood both presented considerable difficulties for the Tax agency investigators due to the size of the establishments and the number of bars and cash receiving points which, it was considered, gave ample opportunity for a member of the Club’s personnel to give the order to destroy evidence if their search was not undertaken correctly.
The report says that in the case of Space, which has 18 bars, they decided to direct their attention to the head of security, preventing him from sounding the alarm.
Agents were inside the club before it closed and without warning blocked all cash registers and set about interrogating the security chief.
In Privilege they approached matters differently. The Agents swooped on the club when it was already closed but the manager with access to cash was still inside.
Having located the manager they went on to find huge amounts of cash which could not be accounted for through recorded sales and so were deemed black money for the purposes of avoiding their obligations of declaration.
As a result of the Privilege sting more than 1 million euros in unaccounted cash was found.
In El País’ report, they stated that agents had spent weeks undercover in the clubs, acting as regular patrons but actually compiling dossiers as to entry and exit times, access, location of cash registers etc.
