Naples, false fuel invoices for over 2 million euros: assets worth 500 thousand euros seized.
The Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples, following complex economic-financial investigations directed by the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Naples North, has executed, between the capital and the metropolitan area, a preventive seizure order aimed at the confiscation of assets with a total value of approximately 500.000 thousand euros against a company operating in the petroleum products trade sector and its pro-tempore administrator.
The precautionary patrimonial measure arises from investigations by the 1st Metropolitan Operational Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples which have documented the existence of a criminal association operating in the Neapolitan hinterland promoting a complex fraud in the particular product sector through the fictitious interposition of various "shell" companies.
These companies, by issuing invoices for non-existent transactions, would have allowed user companies to artificially reduce the taxable base to be taxed, as well as to liquidate lower VAT than that actually due, according to the well-known mechanism of "carousel fraud".
In particular, the purchases, through paper transfers between "fictitious" national companies, would have been carried out by mainly Maltese suppliers and the "shell" companies would have made purchases of diesel fuel using illegitimately false "declarations of intent" reselling the product to national customers in order to defraud VAT for large amounts.
These “ghost” companies would have had the function of interposing themselves in the commercial transaction so as to appear as false buyers of the petroleum product, which would then be sold to the company benefiting from the fraud not only at a price lower than the market price, but also allowing it to benefit from the VAT deduction.
The investigative investigations highlighted that these companies, which were supposedly suppliers of diesel fuel for motor vehicles, had never held the status of habitual exporter and, therefore, could not have made purchases under a tax-free regime.
Thanks to this fraudulent mechanism, the company that benefited from the fraud and was the recipient of the precautionary measure would have used invoices issued for non-existent transactions for a taxable amount of €2.246.204 and VAT equal to €494.164.
In execution of the aforementioned provision, movable assets, real estate, financial relationships, and company shares attributable to the legal representative of the aforementioned company were seized, accused of tax fraud through the use of invoices for subjectively non-existent transactions.
Article published on 5 July 2022 - 14:22
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