Financial police and police engaged in 80 searches since dawn, including with dogs trained to find cash. Assets worth 6 million are seized. Operation Titano, which also involves people already involved in Billions, covered the provinces of Reggio Emilia, Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, Mantua, Parma, Modena, Naples, Rome, Turin and Verona
REGGIO EMILIA – The companies that produced false invoices were owned by people already involved in theoperation ‘Billions‘, which in 2020 had dismantled a criminal association dedicated precisely to the issuing of invoices for non-existent operations. In today’s day operation ‘Titano’ by the Financial Police and the State Police – according to what emerged from the investigations – the paper mills were headed by two people in particular: Graziano Crotti and Walter Di Castri (of Gualtieri), at the time subjected to precautionary measures and now reported at large. Eight companies were subject to preventive seizure, one of these is located in Reggiolo, there Famap Costruzioni Srl, the others scattered throughout the national territory. They had been established – according to the investigators – for the sole purpose of issuing invoices for non-existent operations to third parties and thus allowing them evasion of income taxes and VATfor the benefit of criminal conspiracy.
The preventive seizure order issued by the Judicial Authority also concerned 9 of the legal representatives or directors of these companies: 2 residents in Novellara, the others a Reggio city, Carpineti, Gualtieri, Cadelbosco Sopra and in the Veronese area. Thanks to the fraud perpetrated they would have obtained a illicit profit of 6 million euros: assets and financial resources placed under seizure. I am 44 companies instead throughout the national territory – including the provinces of Reggio, Modena and Parma – which would have used, in their respective annual declarations, invoices for non-existent operations received from paper mill companies for approximately 62 million eurosin a time frame that goes from 2018 to 2022. The paper mills appeared to formally carry out wholesale trade activities of petroleum products, construction machinery, packaging, computers and software, manufacturing of metal articles and retail trade of products via the Internet, while the user companies operate in the field of wholesale trade. wholesale of packaging, construction and clothing.
Eighty searches, also carried out using dogs trained to find cash. The aim was to identify and seize the documentation proving the use of fictitious invoices. During the operations, conducted by the economic and financial police unit of the Guardia di Finanza and the Reggio flying squad, 50 people were reported to be free for tax crimes.
The searches covered the provinces of Reggio Emilia, Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, Mantua, Parma, Modena, Naples, Rome, Turin and Verona.
The provincial commander of the Reggio Emilia Yellow Flames, Ivan Bixio: “Today’s operation further confirms the centrality of the province of Reggio Emilia in providing – through these paper companies – the false billing service to companies throughout the national territory, so as to perpetrate significant tax fraud. Hence the importance of the economic and financial police action of the financial police in this area, in contrast to these pernicious forms of fraud, which steal important resources from citizens and distort market rules, to the detriment of companies in good standing. It is important that every citizen increasingly develops a full awareness of the damage caused by these phenomena to each of us.”
Reggio Emilia police Parma Modena Rome Milan Mantua financial police Turin Verona Naples Brescia Bergamo false invoices Billions Operation Titan
