International Fuel Trafficking – In one year they had imported 7 million liters of diesel illegally More than 200 finance and customs officers employed in Campania, Lombardy, Puglia, Tuscany, Abruzzo and Basilicata
Fuel trafficking arrests in the Salerno area during a blitz in several regions of Italy. Large-scale operation by the Bressanone (Bolzano) financial police and the Bolzano Customs and Monopolies Agency, coordinated by the prosecutor's office, against a criminal organization dedicated to the illicit trafficking of fuel on an international scale. More than 200 financial and customs officers employed in Campania, Lombardy, Puglia, Tuscany, Abruzzo and Basilicata, have executed orders issued by the investigating judge of the court of Bolzano, which led to the arrest, following orders of precautionary custody in prison, of seven people, and the seizure of three commercial warehouses of energy products, 13 roadside fuel distributors, 34 tractors, semi-trailers and tankers used for the transport of fuel, an 18-meter long pleasure boat, counterfeit metal stamps intended for the creation of false transport documents, 60 financial reports (including current accounts, certificates of deposit, securities, etc.), company shares and cash up to 4,3 million euros.
Le persone arrestate sono Francesco D’Auria, 42 anni (residente in provincia di Napoli), Gaetano Panariello, 58 anni (residente in provincia di Salerno), Carmelo Corsaro, 53 anni (residente a Settimo Milanese), Vincenzo Amita, 47 anni (residente a Castellammare di Stabia), Pasquale De Martino, 56 anni (residente in provincia di Reggio Emilia), Vincenzo Sciusco, 48 anni (residente a Cerignola) e Paolo Infantino, 44 anni (residente a Cerignola). Nel complesso, risultano indagate 19 persone per i reati di associazione a delinquere finalizzata alla reiterata commissione dei delitti di contrabbando di prodotti energetici, aggravati in ragione della quantità del prodotto commercializzato e della natura transnazionale degli illeciti.
Seven Italian companies and one Czech company have been reported for failing to prevent and, indeed, for facilitating the commission of the crimes of criminal association aimed at evading excise duty on fuel products. The investigative activity, coordinated initially by the District Attorney's Office at the Court of Trento and, subsequently, by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Bolzano, started with the control of a tanker truck carried out by the Bressanone Guardia di Finanza at the A/22 motorway toll booth in Vipiteno, carried out as part of a coordinated control plan of the territory planned by the Trentino Alto Adige Regional Command of the Guardia di Finanza. The investigations, developed in collaboration with the Anti-Fraud Unit of the Bolzano Customs Office of the Customs and Monopolies Agency, have allowed the dismantling of what the investigators define as "a fierce transnational criminal association" which, in just one year, through the Brenner Pass, illegally 'imported' approximately 7 million litres of diesel into Italy.
The aim of the criminal association was to introduce from Germany and market, on the national territory, diesel fuel for motor vehicles, passing it off, under the guise of 'lubricating oil', so as to avoid paying the excise duty (the indirect tax on the production of petroleum products), which, with reference to diesel fuel, weighs for approximately 60% of the retail price (including VAT), while for lubricating oil purchased in Germany the same is zero. To carry out the huge fraud (limited to excise duties, the evaded tax, in just twelve months, exceeded 4 million euros), the organization made use of some shell companies, without economic substance, operational structures or dependent personnel, in whose name the documents (also fictitious) used to escort the goods along the journey in Italian territory were issued.
The international coordination aspects of the investigation were handled by Eurojust, a European Union body established in 2002 to stimulate and improve the direction of criminal investigations between the competent judicial authorities of the EU Member States, in the fight against serious forms of organised and cross-border crime. According to the reconstruction of the investigation, the empty tankers left Italy and headed towards a compliant depot located in Germany (in the city of Lübben), where the diesel fuel, falsely classified as lubricating oil (and therefore not subject to excise duty), was loaded; the full tankers returned to Italy, travelling an initial stretch on the road, from Lübben to the Austrian town of Wörgl; from there they were loaded onto rails and, via the 'Ro.La.' service (acronym of the German term Rollende Landstrasse – rolling highway), reached Trento, escorted by a simple waybill; once 'disembarked' in Trento, the tanker drivers destroyed the waybills and continued their journey to a commercial depot for petroleum products in the Milanese hinterland. During this journey, the goods were classified as 'diesel' and escorted by fake documents, which falsely attested that the product had already paid excise duty and was headed to an operator authorised for storage by the Financial Administration. Therefore, in the event of routine roadside checks by the police, the loads were found to be formally faultless. The transported diesel was unloaded into the storage tanks located at the commercial depot, whose managers were in collusion with members of the discovered criminal organisation.
Other tankers left the depot to supply roadside fuel distributors that were not part of the circuit of major brands, some of which were owned by individuals belonging to the same criminal organization. Since March 2019, a variant has been added to this basic scheme, which saw the use of 'RALpin SA' (which is the Swiss equivalent of the 'Ro.La.' service) along the Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany)-Novara route, with the final destination being the same Italian depot in the Milanese hinterland. The evasion did not only involve excise duties but also VAT on the marketing of the product; in fact, even the companies that sold diesel to roadside distributors did not fulfill any tax obligations and did not pay the VAT charged to customers and regularly paid by them.
The amount of evaded tax is being quantified. The investigations have allowed the entire illicit chain to be identified, from the top to the accountants, from the local managers of the various warehouses to the numerous transporters, from the many front men of the companies to the compilers of the false documents. To the damage to the treasury, the investigators conclude, we must add the potential danger to the environment and means of transport deriving from the placing on the market of non-compliant energy products, which unsuspecting consumers purchase from fuel distributors present on the national territory. The illicit activity, considering the volume of illegally marketed product, has also caused an inevitable distortion of the market, penalizing honest operators already tried by the serious crisis that has hit the sector.
Article published on 17 July 2020 - 14:35
