Hidden holding company involved in fraud and bankruptcy: €7,8 million seized

Naples – €7,8 million seized from a Neapolitan businessman who organized a secret holding company to bankrupt and plunder five companies.

Two people are under investigation in the investigation by the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Naples Guardia di Finanza and the Economic Crime Section of the Naples Public Prosecutor's Office (Deputy Prosecutor Alessandro Milita and Public Prosecutor Valentina Maisto), which led to the notification of a seizure order for €7,8 million from the investigating judge.

The finance police seized financial assets, companies, and shareholdings for the crimes of aggravated fraud to obtain public funds, fraudulent bankruptcy, issuing and using invoices for non-existent transactions in tax returns, false corporate communications, and wilful failure to comply with a court order.

Coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office, the military reconstructed a complex, illicit system in the management of a company operating in the digital services sector and the marketing of products for the wine industry, which was subsequently placed under judicial liquidation.

The defendants are alleged to have progressively depleted the company's assets, to the detriment of creditors, by transferring, without consideration, a branch of the company, including commercial relationships, capital goods, know-how, and part of the workforce, to a company that was only formally independent but attributable to the same interests and operating in the same economic sector.

The misappropriation of additional company resources through unjustified payments was also alleged. The investigations also revealed the use of invoices for non-existent transactions and the systematic failure to pay taxes and contributions, resulting in financial losses.

False financial statements were also allegedly prepared to represent a financial and financial situation that did not correspond to the actual one and to improperly obtain state-guaranteed financing.

The investigations finally revealed a network of corporate holdings, including foreign ones, attributable to the main suspect, as well as the creation of sham transactions and merely formal registrations aimed at evading the effects of the insolvency proceedings and judicial orders.