Unpaid VAT – and off to Belize!
Anuška Delić, Matej Zwitter, Ante Pavić
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Pandora Papers reveal the secret of a yet another entrepreneur, connected to tax advisor Rok Snežič. His friend Roman Stropnik namely the business of a Slovene company Poštajner which had ’issues’ with paying tax to an eponymous company in the tax haven of Belize.
Illustration: Samira Kentrić
In 2016, the police department in Celje received a non-anonymous criminal complaint against the entrepreneur Roman Stropnik from Šoštanj: »According to the record of the admission of the charge, Roman Stropnik and Rok Snežič are friends, they attend parties together, they made trips to Ibiza and Belgrade.«
The quote belongs to a much broader order of the district court in Ptuj from past December for the investigation of apartments and vehicles of eight people, including a Slovenian tax advisor Rok Snežič, his alleged associate Dijana Đuđić and six other Bosnian citizens.
In March this year, Slovene police raided the houses and other premiese related to this case in collaboration with Croatian and Bosnian police. The matter has not yet yielded an indictment.
The document, acquired by Oštro, is ambiguous about whether and how Stropnik is connected to the alleged criminal activities that are under investigation by the specialized office of the public prosecution.
Stropnik said to Oštro that he has known Snežič for fifteen years, but that they don’t do business together. He claims he knows Đuđić by appearance only, they have never actually met.
In mid-September, Stropnik was scheduled to testify in front of the parliamentary commision that is investigating the alleged unlawful financing of the party SDS and its election campaign in 2018. He ignored the invitation.
In spring 2016, Dijana Đuđić took on positions in three different Slovene companies. Among others she took over a company called PS 8 and renamed it to Družba ŽML.
Half a year later the Slovenian state proposed that Družba ŽML should undergo an insolvency procedure. In her initial report, the court appointed manager explained how she collaborated with the National Tax Office’s department in Celje which led two investigations into the company.
It established that Družba ŽML did not pay VAT throughout its existence, even from before Đuđić took over the company. By the end of September 2016 the claims of the National Tax Office (FURS) totalled more than 305.000 euro.
Due to Đuđić's unresponsiveness the insolvency manager could not take over Družba ŽML’s accounting books. The proceedings ended and the company was struck from the register in 2017. According to FURS, Družba ŽML was a missing trader company that enabled another company, Poštajner, to avoid paying tax.
Poštajner's businesses were later taken over by Pro International, owned by the eponymous company from Belize.
The Pandora Papers reveal that the actual owner of the Belize company was Roman Stropnik.
Bilateral relationships
FURS’ office in Celje had doubts about the authenticity of Družba ŽML's invoices, the insolvency manager stated in her initial report. According to her, the »the founder and director of the connected company Poštaner (sic!)« actually oversaw the invoicing.
That director and founder was Stropnik. Poštajner from Šoštanj was in the business of home improvement and restoration. As maintained by the tax inspectors, he allegedly invoiced Poštajner from Družba ŽML, and vice versas.
They established that the paper trail began in Betnava, a Croatian company owned by Igor Božić, a Slovene citizen from Šentjur. Božić was Stropnik's »close associate and personal friend« and Betnava the only supplier of Družba ŽML, the tax inspectors found.
“If they stayed with us for such a short time, then something wasn’t okay – either with their books or with payments,.”
Poštajner in Slovenia did with Croatian Betnava and Družba ŽML was the conduit company. Poštajner did not pay VAT, therefore Družba ŽML, according to tax inspectors,was a missing trader company
Croatian Betnava issued fictitious receipts to Družba ŽML that issued them further to Poštajner which lastly, tax inspector say, avoided VAT.
Financial reports of the two companies show a similar pattern. In 2014, for instance, Betnava reported 380.000 euros of total income while Družba ŽML reported to have procured 381.000 euros worth of materials. In 2015, Betnava had 682.000 euro of income and Družba ŽML bought 717.000 euros of materials.
The year 2014 was also the first year of Betnava’s existence. It was first registered by Stropnik’s friend Božić in Samobor, at the address of the Bisa servis accounting company. In the three years that it was in business it changed its address three times.
Ivana Arežina, the service’s owner and director, told Oštro that she did not remember Božić or Betnava. She said the company must have been registered there when the accounting service was run by her mother.
Merely six months after its establishment Betnava got a new address in Zagreb where it later changed it again.
»I was asked by the company RPF-K to register another 'resident' at their address,« said Franz Letica, the owner of the business premises he rents out to several companies, accounting service RPF-K.
RPF-K's owner and director Karmen Imbrišak did not remember Betnava or Božić at first, but later told Oštro that Betnava indeed operated at their address from mid- 2015, for less than a year.
»If they stayed with us for such a short time, then something wasn't okay – either with their books or with payments,« she said.
Betnava did not have an office at their address, only a postal address, which was not unusual, according to Imbrišak. Companies often have a registered address with their accounting service. Yet, she could not remember if there were other clients registered at their address.
After 2015 Betnava did not file a financial report and two years later the Croatian Financial Agency demanded liquidation of the company due to a small debt of just 34.000 kuna (around 4500 euro). The company had no employees, no assets or money in the account.
Betnava’s insolvency manager Sabina Lalić said that the liquidation was shortened because the company's bank accounts had been blocked for more than 120 days. »I can't remember what happened in this specific case, but if a company has no money in its account for such a long time, we can conclude that it has not been operating for a while,« Lalić explained.
Betnava's liquidation ended in September 2017 at a court in Osijek, where it has been transferred to from the overburdened court in Zagreb. Laliće said that the company’s insolvency documents were sent to the Croatian Tax Administration Offices where this could be investigated and analysed.
Decision of the board of Pro International in Belize from January 2018. Source: SFM/Pandora Papers
Partners from the Caribbean
In November 2017 Stropnik began to operate through Belize, the Pandora Papers show. There, he took over Pro International that was founded six months earlier by his business partner Milan Strnad, a publicly unknown entrepreneur from Rače.
At that time, Strnad also led a Slovenian company conducted business with companies connected to Keter Group, a former leader in building biogas plants that went bankrupt around 2018.
In October 2017, Strnad decided that Pro International needed a bank account in the Caribbean state of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. At the same time, the corporate registrar SFM was arranging for transfer of ownership of Pro International to Stropnik.
At that time Strnad sent the agent a recommendation letter.
»Mr. Roman Stropnik has been an longtime business partner with whom we cooperated in many different business opportunities. He has been a pleasure to work with, bringing his attention to detail to every project. His communication and people skills are excellent, and he has some very innovative ideas.«
Strnad signed the letter as the director of RH International from the British Virgin Islands which he beneficially owned at the time, Pandora Papers show.
Strnad also asked SFM to open a bank account for the company with Euro Pacific Bank Limited in the island nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The actual order was already signed by Stropnik who SFM also billed for the services.
How and when Stropnik and Strnad began to collaborate is not entirely clear. Stropnik merely confirmed that he knows Strnad but said he did not remember the circumstances of their acquaintance and possible previous business partnerships. Strnad did comment on his relationship with Stropnik.
The businessman from Šoštanj had great plans with the Belize company. In the first year he expected revenue of a million euros, two million euros in the second and three million euros in the third year, Stropnik explained in a business plan that he sent to SFM.
He also announced that the Belize Pro International will buy and sell company receivables as an intermediary, mostly in the construction sector. The main business partners, he wrote, would be three Slovene companies: Skipp gradnje, Arhimont and GH Holding. This will be a long term partnership, he said..
As Stropnik told Oštro in a telephone call, nothing became of these plans, »there wasn't even a euro, there was nothing, no turnover«.
The company did not even have a bank account, he claimed, and that he sold it a year or two ago. He did not reveal the identity of the buyer to Oštro.
Rok Snežič at a Slovene court. Photo: Robert Balen/Večer
(Un)disturbed business
The Pandora Papers show that SFM issued invoices for its services to Stropnik at least until March 2019, when he extended the company Pro International until April 2020.
Part of Pro International's business plan sent to SFM in November 2017 by Roman Stropnik. Source: Pandora Papers/SFM
Pro International's alleged future business partners as described by Stropnik in his business plan. Source: Pandora Papers/SFM
Today, Pro International owns an eponymous Slovene company that deals with supplying construction materials and uses the same website – postajner.si – as Poštajner did before. Stropnik is the director of Slovene Pro International, but maintains that he merely »follows the owner's instructions«, and is not the actual owner.
Even before Poštajner's insolvency in October 2018 some of its business was first taken over by a connected company, Tajner, and later the Slovene Pro International. This was also confirmed to Oštro by Aleš Ajlec, ex-owner and director of Arhimont, which Stropnik referred to in his business plan as a future partner of Pro International in Belize.
Ajlec told Oštro that Stropnik's companies offered construction materials at a low price. Arhimont first bought these from Poštajner, and later, around 2018 or 2019, from Pro International. Ajlec did not remember when they changed their supplier, because he does not have access to the company's documents anymore.
Today Arhimont is owes tax Oštro's journalists could not reach the company's management for comment because the company no longer uses the virtual office, where it is officially registered.
The other two companies that Stropnik said will be future partners were GH Holding and Skipp gradnje. Both companies denied this and said it was an abuse of their names. GH Holding also said they would like to see the document Oštro has in possession so they can legally protect their name.
All in the family
Stropnik denied that he transferred Poštajner's business directly to Pro Interational because it was first taken over by Tajner.
»Poštajner came into trouble, because clients were not paying; a lot of them became insolvent«, so his father Franc Stropnik, who was Tajner's owner at the time, helped out. According to Roman Stropnik, Poštajner paid up a lot of its outstanding invoices after it was taken over by Tajner.
But then the Slovenian state proposed that Tajner be liquidated which was followed by legal struggles that lasted for a couple of months and an insolvency proceeding was started against the company.
In the meantime, Tajner brought in a new (proxy) owner and director Biljana Stupar from Bosnia and Herzegovina. She did not respond to the insolvency manager's attempts to contact her. Finally, after the court intervened Stupar sent the business documentation, albeit incomplete, »through a third party«.
There was also no response from the beneficial owners of the company Franc Stropnik and Tatjana Jezernik who, as the insolvency manager discovered, were controlling the company’s bank account in Austria. The insolvency manager filed a criminal complaint against them on suspicion of defrauding creditors that filed claims totalling around 675 thousand euros.
In the end of 2020, Tajner was struck from the company register. In 2018, Slovene Pro International took over a part of Poštajner's business. It was owned by Pro International from the Seychelles.
According to the last available data of the Financial Administration, Roman Stropnik owes between one and ten million euros of tax. In June this year, the company register proposed that Pro International be liquidated for failure to file annual accounts for two consecutive business years.
Rok Snežič and Dijana Đuđić did not reply to Oštro's questions. Milan Strnad informed us that all of his companies have operated lawfully. He did not wish to »participate in the examination of conspiracies you want to include me in«.
Roman Stropnik spoke to Oštro in a telephone call but then requested that we send him his statements for authorisation. Alas, he announced in the end that he did »not intend to explain the content of my supposed statements, and I hereby cease all communication with you.«
The following reporters contributed to this investigation: Amra Džonlić (ID OCCRP), Aladin Abdagić (CIN) and Samo Demšar (Oštro).
The production of this investigative story was supported by a grant from the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund.
