Directa Sim, Segre investigated for false accounting. The company: «I acted in compliance with the rules and regulations»

The financier Massimo Segre is under investigation (also) for false accounting after the Turin Prosecutor’s Office had already accused him of financial abuse a year ago. The news came with the notification of the extension of the investigations, from which the involvement of the company, Directa Sim, of which the Turin manager is president, now also emerges. «As part of an investigation already underway for over a year – declared Andrea Busi, CEO of Directa Sim – facts attributable to the company have been hypothesized. Directa has always acted in compliance with the rules and regulations, and therefore renews its full trust in the judiciary, to which it will provide all the useful elements to demonstrate the legitimacy of its actions”.

It all started with an inspection by Bankitalia

According to the objections of the public prosecutor Mario Bendoni, who coordinates the investigation by the financial police, at the basis of the suspicious activities of the online trading company founded in 1995, there was a sort of complex scheme, through which the Sim it essentially behaved like a bank: collecting liquidity from healthy institutions and providing it to others who, at that time, were having difficulty raising money through normal banking channels. The alleged irregularities were reported by Bamkitalia inspectors during an inspection: it was noted that some of the accounts, formally intended for trading on the markets, actually showed “irrelevant or absent” operations. Faced with an initial fine (around 30 thousand euros), the measures taken by Directa Sim would not have satisfied Bankitalia which, in 2023, had sent a report to Consob and the Turin Prosecutor’s Office.

The extension of the investigations by the Turin Prosecutor’s Office has been notified

In June 2023, the Fiamme Gialle soldiers showed up at the company headquarters to acquire documentation relating to the alleged illicit conduct. And from there came the list of some banks and financial companies – not investigated, but from which documents were acquired – which had opened accounts and/or received liquidity from Directa Sim. Founded in 1995, the company has around 80 thousand active accounts, through which private individuals invest in financial markets. A year ago, Segre ended up on TV and newspapers, all over Europe too, due to the stormy end of his relationship with his then partner, Cristina Seymandi.

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