A journalist's estimate reveals that Europe loses approximately €50 billion each year to carousel VAT fraud, also known as missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud. This figure surpasses HSBC's $22 billion net income for fiscal year 2025. Author Oliver Bullough noted on a Bloomberg podcast that this type of fraud has no earnings ceiling, incentivizing criminal gangs to collaborate for larger and more elaborate schemes. The fraud involves importing products zero-rated for VAT, selling them to a shell company within the EU with VAT charged, then exporting the goods and reclaiming VAT from the treasury, while the initial trader disappears without remitting the VAT. HSBC is mentioned solely as a scale benchmark and is not suggested to be involved in the fraud.