At the end of complex investigations, the Public Prosecutor's Office of Naples North has obtained the issuance of an order, entrusted for execution to the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples, which has ordered precautionary measures against 9 suspects, suspected of criminal association aimed at committing various crimes, including fraudulent bankruptcy, self-laundering, smuggling of alcoholic products, issuing and use of invoices for non-existent transactions, failure to file tax returns, evasion of excise duty and fraudulent transfer of assets.
House arrest was ordered against four brothers, while the measure of a ban on residence in the provinces of Naples and Caserta was applied to three others, by virtue of the large territory in which the criminal association operated. Serious evidence of a crime was also collected against two accountants, who were banned from practicing as accountants for one year.
In addition to these precautionary measures, there are also seizures of money, company shares and movable and immovable assets, for a total value of approximately 1,7 million euros.
The investigative activities, including those of a technical nature, have made it possible to ascertain the instrumental use of two companies – leaders in southern Italy – operating in the sector of distillation and marketing of alcoholic beverages, which were formally administered by some "front men", but substantially managed by a family unit composed of individuals who had previously been subjected to serious precautionary measures for crimes relating to the smuggling of alcoholic products.
According to what emerged during the investigations, the family group would have first caused the financial collapse of the companies used to distill and market alcoholic beverages, accumulating a huge debt towards the Treasury due to unpaid taxes and duties and, subsequently, would have proceeded to fraudulently regain the availability of these companies.
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During the investigations, also through the analysis of the innumerable bank flows, it was possible to reconstruct the various phases before and after the bankruptcy, thus emerging the methods of repurchase of the companies and the self-laundering conduct of the illicit proceeds deriving from the smuggling of alcoholic products.
In particular, the concealment practices carried out by the four brothers subjected to today's precautionary measure of house arrest have allowed them to regain ownership of the business complex based in the municipality of Pastorano in the province of Caserta, worth approximately 2 million euros, which was then purchased by a company operating in the restaurant sector.
This company, in turn acquired with the proceeds of the illicit activity of smuggling alcoholic beverages, was found to be owned by the respective wives of the defendants, who managed it materially through a fictitious administrator of absolute trust.
The widespread fraud system that allowed the smuggling of alcoholic products and the evasion of VAT and excise duties, would be based essentially on the use and issuing of invoices for non-existent transactions by 'shell' companies, i.e. companies without any concrete operations, which were interposed in the sales transactions only to pass on to them the huge tax debts towards the State.
In other cases, however, the issuing of false invoices would have occurred through the collaboration of non-existent legal entities created ad hoc, in order to facilitate the illegal release for consumption of thousands of litres of alcoholic products, to be destined for the national and foreign markets.
