{"id":7892,"date":"2024-11-14T14:48:49","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T14:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/italy-holds-dozens-and-freezes-e520mn-over-mafia-tax-fraud-against-eu\/"},"modified":"2024-11-14T14:48:49","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T14:48:49","slug":"italy-holds-dozens-and-freezes-e520mn-over-mafia-tax-fraud-against-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=7892","title":{"rendered":"Italy holds dozens and freezes \u20ac520mn over \u2018mafia tax fraud\u2019 against EU"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Italian authorities and their European counterparts have arrested 43 people and seized assets worth \u20ac520mn including luxury cars and boats in a crackdown on an alleged tax fraud scheme run by Italian mafia groups.<\/p>\n

The European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office, which led the investigation, said members of several Italian criminal groups came together to run a complex and \u201chighly profitable tax evasion scheme\u201d. The scheme, dubbed a \u201cVAT carousel fraud\u201d, involved invoices for \u20ac1.3bn worth of laptops, earpods and other electronic goods.<\/p>\n

The alleged fraud involved the creation of fake companies \u2014 or \u201cmissing traders\u201d or \u201cghost companies\u201d \u2014 in Italy, other EU countries and other countries outside the EU, which would buy and sell goods between them, then vanish without fulfilling their tax obligations.<\/p>\n

The network provided a paper trail for claims for fraudulent VAT reimbursement from Italian authorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The assets frozen on Thursday, to compensate the EU and Italian authorities for money lost through the unwarranted VAT reimbursements, includes 129 bank accounts, nearly 200 apartments, homes and other real estate holdings, and 44 luxury cars and boats, the EPPO said.<\/p>\n

Participants in the scheme included members of the Naples-based Camorra and Sicily\u2019s Cosa Nostra, which invested as a means of laundering money from other criminal activities, Italian authorities said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMafia methods\u201d were used to \u201csettle conflicts that arose within the criminal syndicate between the members of the different criminal organisations\u201d, the EPPO said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of those arrested on Thursday, 34 have been sent to prison to await trial, while nine are under house arrest, authorities said.\u00a0In addition to the 43 people held in Italy, seven European arrest warrants were issued for suspects in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and non-EU countries.<\/p>\n

In total, police across 10 EU countries carried out searches at about 160 locations on Thursday as they hunted for more evidence of the scheme, which is believed to have involved at least 195 people and about 400 companies.<\/p>\n

Laura K\u00f6vesi, the European chief prosecutor, said the case was a \u201cdefining investigation\u201d for the EPPO, which has grown increasingly anxious about the penetration of Italy\u2019s sophisticated organised crime groups into financial fraud across Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been a while since we started to ring the alarm bell about dangerous organised crime groups\u2019 heavy involvement in fraud [against] the EU budget,\u201d she said, citing the \u201ccolossal damages\u201d and \u201cthe threat to our internal security\u201d caused by such activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now shed light on a first such big case,\u201d K\u00f6vesi said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed the arrests and the asset seizures, which she said demonstrated \u201cthe government\u2019s firm commitment to combating tax evasion, one of our top priorities\u201d.<\/p>\n

The crackdown on Thursday comes seven months after Italian authorities seized assets worth \u20ac600mn \u2014 including villas, luxury cars, watches and jewellery \u2014 and arrested 22 people in connection with alleged fraud involving the EU\u2019s \u20ac800bn post-pandemic recovery fund.<\/p>\n

Of those accused in that case, two have already admitted to wrongdoing through a plea deal, while the trials for the rest began this week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Italian authorities and their European counterparts have arrested 43 people and seized assets worth \u20ac520mn including luxury cars and boats in a crackdown on an alleged tax fraud scheme run by Italian mafia groups. The European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office, which led the investigation, said members of several Italian criminal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[206],"tags":[2519,2518,401,1973,2517,2516,2520,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-7892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial-crime","8":"tag-520mn","9":"tag-dozens","10":"tag-fraud","11":"tag-freezes","12":"tag-holds","13":"tag-italy","14":"tag-mafia","15":"tag-tax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}