Million-dollar round of fake invoices in Caltanissetta: the sentences [VIDEO/ NOMI]

Operation Chicane, conducted by the financial police and the Carabinieri, had revealed a tax fraud in the purchase and sale of tires.

Caltanissetta – Convictions for all the defendants in the trial, held at the court of Caltanissetta, in relation to Operation Chicane which uncovered a tax fraud of 2.5 million euros carried out in the context of the market of buying and selling and distribution of tires. The criminal association had ramifications in the national territory but also abroad, in particular in the Czech Republic, and as its main purpose was to fiscally favor the company Olpneus srl of San Cataldo (Caltanissetta).

The crimes contested, to varying degrees, are criminal association aimed at the issuing and use of invoices for non-existent transactionsi. The legal representative of Olpneus srl Lirio Orlando and Oto Santuori they were sentenced to one year, 10 months and 10 days in prison; Luigi Boy to one year, 9 months and 16 days of imprisonment; Alexander Stephen Rasola to 8 months in prison; Emanuele Santuori, Maria Pia Raccioppi, Vincenzo Menafro, Roberto Menafro and Carlo Ballarino to 5 months and 10 days in prison.

The investigations, concluded in 2022, coordinated by the Caltanissetta Public Prosecutor’s Office and carried out by the Caltanissetta Financial Police Group and the Caltanissetta Carabinieri Norm, have allowed us to reveal how the criminal organization, permanently established among the defendants, had ramifications also on the territory of the Czech Republic where fictitious legal entities were createdi, necessary for the implementation of the frauds perpetrated by the suspects.

The scheme was that of the so-called ‘carousel fraud’, in which, with different roles and positions, the various commercial operators obtain, in various capacities, an undue tax saving. The criminal group simulated a consecutive series of sales of products, which in reality never left the warehouses, involving Czech companies and Italian intermediary companies, which later turned out to be mere shell companies. By taking advantage of the so-called ‘tax suspension’ regime, the first selling company obtained tax deductions, both VAT and IRES, which were not due. The VAT credit originated from a series of non-existent transactions, certified by false invoices, consisting of the sale of products which in fact were never moved, the business volumes were quantified at around 8 million Euros, with related evaded taxes amounting to 2.5 million Eurosalready subject to preventive seizure, even for equivalent.

The company Olpneus srl was fined 40 thousand euros and temporarily banned from advertising goods or services for 4 months and 10 days. Another defendant, Andriy Kanya had already been sentenced by the investigating judge of Caltanissetta in a summary trial. The legal representative of Olpneus srl, Lirio Orlando, and the main tax consultant of the company, Marcello Di Maggio, in a parallel proceeding had been sentenced to 8 months and 10 days of imprisonment and to 7 months for the crime of false corporate communications.