15 cases of aggravated fraud were discovered involving numerous requests for financing to support the internationalization of Italian companies: thanks to the active collaboration of Simest (a company owned by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti), the disbursement of a sum exceeding 15 was prevented million euros. The cases in an operation of the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Pesaro called “The carousel has stopped”. The suspects had devised a sort of scam best practice to pass the checks. Three were arrested and the registration of an accountant who created false financial statements was suspended. The crimes charged include self-laundering, false accounting and embezzlement.
The financiers also carried out preventive seizures against the same four suspects and two companies for an amount of 490,198.62 euros. The orders and decrees were issued by the investigating judge of Pesaro at the request of the European public prosecutor’s office (Eppo) of Bologna. Therefore, illicit requests for public funding, disbursed with Pnrr funds for over 15 million euros, which would have been allocated by Simest, have been blocked. The investigation was initially launched against a limited liability company with formal headquarters in Pesaro, beneficiary of subsidized and guaranteed financing from the State and the EU, attributable to a director and sole shareholder; the financiers have also detected other similar cases for the benefit of other companies with registered offices in the provinces of Ravenna and Bolzano.
Joint-stock companies were created which were in fact empty boxes, with registered offices and non-existent units due to mere corporate domiciliation, existing only to defraud public bodies. The companies had never submitted tax returns, some for over 20 years, but the suspects created at least two false financial statements showing revenues in the millions, filed them with the Companies Registry, thus committing the crime of false corporate communications.
