This morning the Salerno finance police executed an order applying the house arrest measure against two brothers, accused of fraudulent bankruptcy for asset diversion.
SThe case concerns Luigi Di Bianco (born in 68) and Maria Rosaria Di Bianco (born in 66), entrepreneurs from Salerno who ran a network of supermarkets in the city. The charges against them relate to the bankruptcy of numerous companies attributable to the same business group. These companies had accumulated unpaid debts of over 50 million euros, including tax debts of over 28 million euros. The diversion involved assets and liquidity for approximately 10 million euros from companies that were then allowed to fail. It was an important business reality in the city of Salerno.
Over the years, in fact, the defendants had come to simultaneously manage up to 20 supermarkets, employing up to 150 workers. The system implemented over time to continue the activity of the stores despite insolvency was well-established, with transfers of ownership between formally distinct companies, but always attributable to the same family group. The Fiamme Gialle of Salerno have identified a clear direction, with a sequence of distracting acts, aimed at evading the creditors' claims, through targeted plundering of the companies that had accrued the debt exposures in the exercise of commercial activity.
Thus, continuous transfers of capital goods, merchandise, liquidity and personnel were carried out, sometimes even entire branches of the company, so that the supermarkets continued to remain open without interruption, resulting in them being managed by newly established legal entities, on paper completely autonomous and separate from those in debt. Already for the first time, in 2019, the Guardia di Finanza had intervened to carry out the preventive seizure of four supermarkets of the group. In that case, the proceedings were based on a hypothesis of fraudulent evasion of tax payments, ascertained at the end of a tax audit. Further investigations by the Guardia di Finanza coordinated by the Salerno Public Prosecutor's Office have today led to the formulation of new, more serious, charges and the adoption of the precautionary measure.
Article published on 26 February 2021 - 09:21
