He had purchased the fleet of the bankrupt Deiulemar with a fake foreign headquarters: assets seized from a Neapolitan shipping company

This morning, as part of a complex investigation coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Naples, the military of the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples, executed a provision issued by the GIP Office with which the preventive seizure of the sum of €4.634.320,00 was ordered against the foreign-owned company "Heron Venture Limited" as well as against one of the board members of the same.
The investigations concerned a complex operation with which the aforementioned company, during the year 2014, first purchased at auction, held at the Court of Torre Annunziata, the fleet (consisting of 12 ships) of the bankrupt shipping company “Deiulemar Shipping” and then resold the same fleet to third parties, realizing a substantial capital gain.
The fraudulent mechanism consisted in making the registered office of the company – owned, at the time of its incorporation, by the Italian shipping group Augustea and the international fund York – appear to be in Malta while, in reality, the company had its effective management center (so-called “place of effective management”) in Italy and in particular in Naples. In this city – where, among other things, the director resides and works – the most important decisions were taken and the necessary directives were given to perfect the economic operation described above. The analysis of the company documentation and emails made it possible, in fact, to understand how everything was actually managed from Italy and in Naples in particular: the purchase of the ships, the obtaining of financing, the division of the fleet and the sale of obsolete ships to third parties.
In just over a year, the acquisition of the fleet and its resale allowed “Heron Venture” to make a profit of over 16,8 million euros and to pay taxes of a few thousand euros to Malta instead of paying 4,6 million euros to the Italian Treasury. For this reason, the crime contested is that of failure to declare income (art. 5 Legislative Decree no. 74/2000).
The seizure order issued by the GIP Office will allow the above-mentioned sum equal to the evaded tax to be subject to a lien, if found on the company's bank accounts and alternatively on those attributable to the suspect or on his assets of equivalent value.