The State attorney's offices in
Palermo and Milan and the European Public Prosecutor's Office
(EPPO) have discovered a criminal organization connected to the
Mafia and Camorra crime syndicates that allegedly evaded
hundreds of millions of value added tax (VAT), investigative
sources said on Thursday.
A preliminary investigations judge in Milan (GIP), at the
request of EPPO, issued 34 arrest warrants in prison, nine house
arrest orders and four measures of interdiction from performing
professional activities.
A total of seven European arrest warrants were issued as part of
the investigation.
Assets worth 520 million euros were seized.
False invoices were issued for 1.3 billion euros, said
investigative sources, with prosecutors probing a total of 400
companies and 200 people on charges of money laundering and
criminal association aimed at tax fraud, aggravated by the
mafia-style method.
At the centre of the probe is inter-border VAT fraud in the sale
of IT equipment and the laundering of illicit profits, the
sources ecplained.
Police carried out on Thursday 160 search operations in 30
provinces.
Overall, police operations were carried out as part of the
European Public Prosecutor's Office's probe in Italy, Spain,
Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria,
Cyprus, the Netherlands and in non-EU countries including
Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.
The Milan GIP ordered the preventive seizure of over 520 million
euros, or the overall value of the alleged VAT tax fraud, as
well as the seizure over alleged money laundering of several
properties including resorts worth a total of over 10 million
euros in Cefalù, near Palermo.
Real estate properties were also preventively seized in cities
across Italy including Milan.
The judge recognized, for the alleged ringleaders of the
organization, the aggravating factor of having aided Mafia and
Camorra crime syndicates by investing their profits in VAT
frauds and of having used Mafia-style methods in conflicts
within the association between members of different criminal
organizations, investigative sources explained.
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