The Financiers of the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Arezzo, as part of the daily economic control services of the territory aimed at repressing illicit trafficking, have seized 10 tons of contraband foreign processed tobacco in recent days.
In particular, a patrol of the Arezzo Group, employed in the public utility service “117”, during a checkpoint carried out near Civitella in Val di Chiana, stopped an articulated lorry, with a foreign license plate and driven by a Slovenian driver, which was transporting as many as 10 tons of tobacco.
The Fiamme Gialle, after having summarily verified the transported load, consisting of 100 boxes containing tobacco, formally classified as “raw tobacco waste”, noting that the product was sold by a Croatian company and was destined for a company with registered office in the Province of Arezzo, examined the accompanying international documents in detail, comparing them with a careful visual examination of the type of tobacco actually transported.
The financiers thus noticed a substantial discrepancy between the declared product description and the type of tobacco actually on board the articulated lorry. They noted, in fact, that the latter could not be classified as “raw tobacco waste” but that, instead, it was evidently “processed tobacco waste”, to the point of having to be classified as a “smokable” product and, therefore, subjected to consumption tax (excise duty), for an amount of approximately 1.5 million euros.
The different product cataloging reported on the documents compared to the real situation, evidently aimed at avoiding the payment of the taxes in question, integrated the crimes referred to in articles 291bis (“smuggling of foreign manufactured tobaccos”) and 291ter (“aggravating circumstances of the crime of smuggling of foreign manufactured tobaccos”) of the Consolidated Law on the legislative provisions on customs matters, for which the legal representatives of the supplying and purchasing companies were reported to the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Arezzo.
In agreement with the aforementioned AG, the load was then subjected to seizure, pending definitive specialist product tests, by the “smoke laboratory” of the Customs and Monopolies Agency of Rome, specialized in the matter, the outcome of which, after a few days, it confirmed the product classification initially identified by the financiers (processed tobacco waste) and the subjection to taxation of the seized product.
The operation conducted demonstrates the commitment of the Guardia di Finanza in combating illicit trafficking in general and, in this case, the complex and peculiar phenomenon of the smuggling of “foreign manufactured tobacco”, capable of generating a subtraction of huge resources from the ‘Treasury and to harm the financial interests of the Italian State and the European Union.
The dissemination of this press release has been authorized by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Arezzo (art. 5 of Legislative Decree no. 106/2006, as amended by art. 3 of Legislative Decree no. 188/2021), as of investigative activities of public interest.
For illicit conduct being examined by the local judiciary, on the basis of the principle of presumption of innocence, the guilt of the persons subjected to investigation will be definitively ascertained only if an irrevocable sentence of conviction occurs.
