FOGGIA – Eight precautionary measures, three in prison and five under house arrest, were carried out in Foggia by the financial police as part of an investigation by the European prosecutor’s office into a criminal association for tax fraud and self-laundering which also led to the preventive seizure of assets and financial resources for over 18 million euros. This is the equivalent of the amount of VAT subtracted from the treasury and the profit from the contested crimes.
The investigation concerned a large tax fraud which was allegedly carried out in the beverage wholesale sector through the interposition of numerous companies, some of which were formally based in Bulgaria. The investigations, which also made use of channels of international judicial cooperation, gathered elements of a fraudulent scheme consisting of the planning of operations – purely securitized – between Italian and Bulgarian companies and which ultimately made it possible to achieve illicit tax savings.
The fraudulent mechanism would have allowed distributors and traders to sell the goods at more competitive prices compared to other companies on the market, being able to count on VAT evasion carried out through Italian and Bulgarian “paper mill” companies, all managed by Foggia through a single organizational system of goods and people.
