Discovered by the Trentino Yellow Flames maxi transnational fraud, a Trentino company, total evader, illegally resold cars hired by the main car manufacturers to private customers, in Italy and abroad.
800 cars seized by financiers, sold in Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and Greece, worth over € 14 million; fourteen people reported – for various reasons – for complicity in aggravated embezzlement, aiding and abetting, money laundering and omitted tax return. The director of the Trentino company is currently sought for capture at European level. Tax evasion of almost 30 million euros was noted.
The investigations of the Trentino financiers, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor of Trento Dr. Pasquale Profiti, arose from the complaints filed by three finance and leasing companies, including a subsidiary of a leading global automotive group, and focused on a Spanish citizen, director of a thirty branch of a Spanish car rental group , with numerous operating offices abroad (Spain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Romania, Poland and Mexico).
The investigations of the Fiamme Gialle, including specific tax investigations aimed both at reconstructing the commercial network of the Trentino branch, and at bringing out the criminal-tax violations related to the illegal conduct reported by the plaintiffs, made it possible to ascertain how the aforementioned company – between 2017 and 2018 – rented more than 1,000 vehicles of various brands (mostly Fiat sedans and SUVs, but also Opel, Skoda, Peugeot, Nissan, Ford, Citroen and Toyota), without paying the relative rental fees, subsequently providing for illicitly resell them, even abroad, to private customers unaware of the fraud, all while failing to declare the relative income earned to the tax authorities.
In order to identify the cars sold, the investigation activities were also conducted through a complex transnational investigative activity, which saw extensive use of international cooperation procedures, implemented through the II Department “Information coordination and international relations” of the General Command of the Guardia di Finanza, with the German, French, Belgian and Greek Police Forces, which made it possible to trace and impound 800 cars with a market value of over 14 million euros, already returned to the defrauded companies.
At the outcome of the overall investigations, the investigators of the Economic-Financial Police Unit of Trento denounced the administrator of the Trentino branch, located in via Brennero, who was also the head of the entire Spanish car rental group, a 44-year-old Majorcan. years, for complicity in aggravated embezzlement together with nine managers (six Spanish and three Italians) of the aforementioned group.
The aforementioned Spanish administrator, also denounced for the omitted tax return of the Trentino company, is currently being sought as the recipient of a European Arrest Warrant (MAE) issued by the GIP at the Court of Trento. An Italian from the province of Latina was also reported, for aiding and abetting, who fictitiously registered the ownership of some cars, while for recycling, three Italian owners of some car showrooms in Bulgaria, in Anzio (RM) and Gallarate (VA) , for knowingly reselling cars of illicit origin to private individuals through three companies which, in turn, have been reported to the local judicial authority for administrative liability resulting from a crime.
The related tax investigations, including the analysis of the computer data seized upon access to the thirty car rental company, made it possible to qualify this company as a “total tax evader”, having failed to submit, for the periods of tax 2017 and 2018, the required tax returns for IRES, IRAP and VAT purposes, and to recover almost 30 million euros of tax evaded.
The service operation represents a clear example of the commitment made by the Guardia di Finanza to safeguard not only public economic and financial interests, but also healthy entrepreneurship and all private citizens, pursuing the aim of intercepting the financial flows generated by unlawful conduct likely to pollute the legal economic fabric and distort the conditions of free competition on the market.
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