Caserta, massive €39 million facade bonus scam: seizures and 28 suspects

A colossal scam constructed on false fronts and tax credits inflated to the tune of €39 million. This is what the Caserta Provincial Finance Police reconstructed, having executed an emergency precautionary seizure ordered by the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prosecutor's office, blocking tax credits still in the tax drawers totaling over €38 million.

The investigation, conducted by the Guardia di Finanza's Mondragone branch, uncovered the central figure of a man residing in the province of Naples, described by investigators as a veritable collector of tax credits related to building incentives. According to investigators, he had accumulated credits totaling approximately €39 million related to renovations or restorations of building facades "carried out on non-existent properties or owned by third parties completely unconnected to the matter."

Twenty-eight people are under investigation for allegedly conspiring to construct the entire fraudulent scheme based on the transfer of undue credits. The charges include the misappropriation of public funds and, for one of them, money laundering: after monetizing €124,000 in illicit credit, he allegedly transferred the sum to a Bulgarian bank account through a series of transactions designed to conceal its origin.

The precautionary seizure almost entirely covered the fraud, estimated at €39,1 million. The investigating judge of Santa Maria Capua Vetere validated the order, confirming the full validity of the precautionary lien placed on the tax credits. This case re-focuses the spotlight on the vulnerabilities of construction incentives and the mechanisms that, in recent years, have fueled multi-million dollar fraud schemes throughout Italy.