This type of fraud typically involves a claiming of VAT in one country for transactions between various countries for which no form of VAT has been paid in the other country. Because these transactions pass from one country to another, it is already more complex to identify fraud, mostly because there are usually more than two parties involved.
Such fraud carousels are therefore rather difficult to detect. Difficult, but not impossible!
Read here how SAS has helped the Belgian government create a hybrid fraud detection system that prevents nearly every form of fraud carousel and has thus helped generate an annual extra income of nearly one billion euro.