Turin: VAT fraud in polymer trade, involving several EU countries. 13 arrests and seizures for 100 million euros

The military of the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Turin they are carrying out, since the early hours of the morning of 25 March, an order issued by the GIP of the Court of Nola at the request of European Public Prosecutor (EPPO – European Public Prosecutor's Office) – Turin Office, with which agreements have been made 13 personal precautionary measures towards members of a criminal association rooted in Campania and with mechanical branches in Italy and abroad, held responsible for a VAT fraud which caused huge damage to the European Union budget and the Italian State.

In this regard, they are simultaneously performed preventive seizures for a total amount of approximately 100 million euros, corresponding to the profit of the fraud carried out.

On this occasion, a specific action day was activated at European level:

• thanks to the activation of the competent European Delegated Prosecutors and the judicial cooperation channels, intervening in several European states, with the involvement of the Slovak, Belgian, Latvian and Hungarian police forces;
• on the national side, a device of approximately 100 Financiers, of the Turin Economic and Financial Police Unit with the support of the Special Unit for Privacy and Technological Fraud and of the territorially competent Departments, for the execution of precautionary measures as well as contextual searches, in Piedmont, Campania, Lombardy, Tuscany and Lazio, with the assistance of “cash dog” canine units.

The measure adopted constitutes theepilogue of complex investigations conducted by the specialists of the Turin Economic and Financial Police Unit, with the use, among other things, of extensive activities of interception, observation and shadowing as well as analysis through the databases available to the Corps.

These investigations have allowed us to to reveal a complex tax evasion system in the marketing and processing of plastic materials and chemical products for industry.

In particular, it was reconstructed as the polymers, coming from important intermediary companies located in various European countries, were introduced in Italy through a commercial chain in which numerous "shell" companies were fictitiously interposed, located in various Regions, which systematically violated the obligations to declare and pay the VAT due.

The "paper mills”, in turn, they were reselling the goods, below cost, to other shell companies located in Italy (so-called "filter"), formally administered by front men, devoid of any operational structure and dependent personnel, equally totally in default towards the Treasury.

This is with the aim of interposing – always and only from a paper point of view – further economic subjects in the supply chain, so as to increase illicit profits, make it more difficult to reconstruct the fraudulent mechanism and, above all, prevent the identification of the actual responsible parties and the final beneficiaries.

Thanks to the systematic evasion of VAT it was possible for the defendants to put products on the market at significantly lower prices compared to the reference ones, with consequent distortion of free competition, to the detriment of other commercial operators in the sector.

Alongside the described "cartographic" path of the assets, the "real”, which ranged from actual wholesalers (located in other EU countries) to final buyers, regularly operating Italian companies, mainly located in Piedmont, Lombardy and Tuscany, which use the polymers in their ordinary industrial processes.

In a time span that goes by 2018 to 2023, the network of artfully interposed companies has overall issued and used invoices for non-existent transactions for a total amount of 500 million euro, determining aVAT evasion of approximately 100 million.

The crimes contested, at present, are those of criminal association aimed at VAT fraud, the issuing and use of invoices for non-existent transactions, omitted declarations, omitted tax payments and undue compensations, and have led to the registration, in various capacities, in the register of investigated di 52 Guests.

On the basis of the reconstructed evidence, the GIP at the Court of Nola, competent due to the territorial location of the organization's leaders, issued the provision which is the object of today's execution, applying personal precautionary measures against 13 subjects (6 recipients of prison custody and 7 of house arrest).

The same provision also provided for the preventive seizure, even for equivalent, of financial availability and other assets towards 15 individuals and 13 companies, up to the amount of 100 million euro constituting the overall profit of the contested crimes.

The activities under review represent tangible evidence of the constant commitment shown by the Guardia di Finanza, by virtue of its specific prerogatives of economic and financial police, in matters of combating tax evasion and fraud, with particular attention not only to the determination of criminal and administrative responsibilities but also to the attack on illicitly accumulated assets.

Previous 1 di 5 The next