ANCONA – Illicit procurement and sale of over 133 million liters of fuel and has produced, in just a few years, profits of over 15 million euros and a preventive seizure of over 15.5 million euros. The maxi operation was conducted by the financiers of the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Ancona, delegated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Trani, who carried it out in the provinces of Ascoli Piceno, Teramo, Pescara, Barletta, Pistoia, Reggio Emilia and Sassari to a detailed precautionary measure issued by the GIP at the Court of Trani, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Trani, with which the preventive seizure of assets and assets was ordered, at the conclusion of a complex investigation which made it possible to interrupt a complex and major fraud perpetrated in the fuel trade.
In these last hours, a few dozen soldiers of the Fiamme Gialle of the Economic-Financial Police Unit of Ancona, with the collaboration of the Departments of the Corps responsible for the territory, are affixing the seals on 32 real estate units, including 2 roadside distributors in province of Teramo, a fuel depot in the province of Reggio Emilia, a resort located in the municipality of Arzachena, in Baia Sardinia (in the province of Sassari), a residence located in the province of Teramo, plus various luxury apartments and land in various provinces Italian. The aforementioned provision represents the culmination of complex investigations conducted by the Ancona Economic-Financial Police Unit initially under the guidance of another Public Prosecutor’s Office and then coordinated, due to territorial jurisdiction, by the Trani Prosecutor’s Office, which made it possible to defeat an organization criminal, led by a forty-year-old entrepreneur of Apulian origins, responsible for having created, through the creation of fictitious corporate structures, completely tax-defaulting, a significant tax fraud in the trade of petroleum products and the subsequent reinvestment of the proceeds in real estate activities.
In particular, the organization exploited a fraud system which involved the use of shell companies with which, with the instrument of “intra-community purchase”, at various refineries, it managed to obtain large quantities of unencumbered fuel. from VAT on the purchase. These large quantities of fuel were subsequently sold by omitting the relevant annual VAT and income declarations or by submitting them without reporting the VAT or revenues relating to these operations. The oil product, coming mainly from Slovenia, was first sold to three “paper mill” companies formally located in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic managed by members of the criminal organization, and was then invoiced to seven other Italian “paper mill” companies which they did not pay the tax due to the Treasury, even though they collected it from Italian customers and failed to declare it.
The “paper mill” companies had, in fact, been established with the sole intention of remaining operational for a limited period of time, at the end of which they were “abandoned” (and therefore replaced) taking advantage of the fact that administrative and criminal responsibilities, if and once verified, they would fall on the (worthless) frontman who had been put in charge. At the end of all the various paperwork steps, the fuels obtained in evasion of VAT were resold, below cost, with an invoice, to the owners of networks of roadside distributors or commercial depots, often attributable, or even coinciding, to the same subjects who had created the “paper mills”, with the advantage, for these buyers, of being able to sell the same products at a highly competitive price, thanks to the immediate effects generated by the failure to pay VAT.
The massive tax fraud involved the illicit supply and sale of over 133 million liters of fuel and produced, in just a few years, illicit profits for the criminal organization of over 15 million euros. At the end of the investigations, the related tax investigations were also carried out which allowed illicit proceeds of over 109 million euros to be proposed for tax recovery and the criminal developments of which saw the involvement of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Trani. In this regard, in relation to this last aspect, the GIP at the Court of Trani, at the request of the local Prosecutor’s Office, issued a preventive seizure order up to the amount of 15.5 million euros which was carried out by the soldiers of the Unit of the Economic-Financial Police of Ancona, sifting through hundreds of current accounts, legal transactions and real estate transcripts. Thus, a huge heritage was rebuilt, consisting of dozens of properties, many of which were used as accommodation facilities, fuel plants and boats.
