This morning, the military personnel of the Economic and Financial Police Units of the Guardia di Finanza of Naples, Trieste and Frosinone, in collaboration with the Central Service for the Investigation of Organized Crime, are executing in Campania, Lazio and Emilia Romagna two preventive seizure orders concerning movable and immovable assets for a total amount of over 150 million euros against eleven individuals investigated, in various capacities, including in association, for multiple tax crimes, false corporate communications, fraudulent transfer of assets and self-laundering.
The crimes being investigated are aggravated, for six of the suspects, by the purpose of mafia facilitation of two Camorra clans operating in the eastern area of Napoli and, for one of them, from having committed the act in the exercise of the tax consultancy activity.
The investigations that gave rise to the seizure orders, corroborated by the converging statements of collaborators of justice, have shed light on complex fraud mechanisms in the hydrocarbons sector carried out, between 2015 and 2021, through the establishment, in Italy and abroad, of "shell" companies functional to allowing third parties to evade VAT and excise duties and to apply illicitly competitive prices to end consumers.
11 people under investigation, including the leaders of the two clans and also a tax consultant
The companies instrumentally interposed in the commercial chain presented, in fact, the typical traits of non-existent economic entities: legal representation attributed to individuals with no entrepreneurial experience, penniless and burdened by police records, who were guaranteed compensation by the promoters of the association.
Limited time operations to avoid inspections; disproportionate amount of purchases and sales of diesel fuel for motor vehicles in a limited time frame; lack of company offices, warehouses, employees and vehicles; failure to comply with accounting, reporting and tax payment obligations.
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The cessation of the “business” activity after the initiation of tax or judicial investigations and the taking over of new “businesses” with the same characteristics.
Among the main beneficiaries of the fraud is a company in Naples that, until the bankruptcy declaration, was de facto co-managed by top members of the Formicola clan and the Silenzio clan, one of which had already been the recipient of an anti-mafia asset prevention measure.
The legal or de facto directors of the said company are also charged with the crimes of self-laundering for having used in the economic activity large financial flows coming from a "shell" company and of false accounting for having represented, through non-existent credits, a situation of financial solidity and credit reliability in place of shortages that would have given rise to a reduction in the share capital.
The investigations revealed the concrete risk that the suspects would nullify the financial guarantee for the treasury also through operations on foreign accounts, the creation of trusts, registration on bitcoin platforms and the repeated fictitious registration of companies and movable and immovable assets to front persons.
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