Nocera Inferiore, tax evasion: seizure of 40 million

This morning, the Guardia di Finanza of the Provincial Command of Salerno has implemented a preventive seizure measure for assets, securities and immovables, for a total amount of approximately 40 million eurosproceeding at the same time with the notification of a notice of conclusion of the preliminary investigations, towards 10 natural persons investigated, for various reasons, for evasion of the assessment and payment of excise duties on energy products, fictitious formation of share capital, fraudulent bankruptcy, malicious failure to comply with a judge’s order, fraud, self-laundering, fraudulent declaration through use of invoices or other documents for non-existent transactions and issuing of false invoices.

The investigations

The investigations, carried out by the Economic-Financial Police Unit of Salerno, under the coordination of this Public Prosecutor’s Office, concerned the legal representative, the liquidator and the members of the board of auditors of a joint-stock company operating in the sector of trading of petroleum products , owner of a tax warehouse a Valmadonna (in the province of Alessandria), with registered office until 2018, a Roma and subsequently transferred to Lower Nocera. In particular, according to the accusatory hypothesis, currently confirmed by the Judge for Preliminary Investigations, the company would have avoided paying the excise duties due for an amount exceeding 30 million eurosthrough a series of tricks and deceptions consisting of simulating purchases of energy products, to be stored abroad, commissioned from another economic entity, as a result of which significant financial difficulties would have arisen such that it would not be possible to meet the tax debts.

The false appraisals

At the same time, the authors of the fraudulent mechanism, through false appraisals of estimates prepared by two professionals, also under investigation, proceeded with a fictitious increase in the share capital through contributions of overvalued corporate assets. This operation allowed the company under investigation, apparently solid and in prosperous economic conditions, to obtain, from two financial intermediaries under foreign law, the granting of surety policies to guarantee the excise duty payment obligations to the Customs and Monopolies Agency, causing the , just after the enforcement of the guarantees by the investigating bodies, through simulated legal negotiations, the assets on which the insurance intermediaries should have recovered, thus also evading a precautionary seizure decree issued by the court of Rome at the request of the victims of the scam.

Invoices for non-existent operations

In the same context, invoices were identified for subjectively non-existent operations, issued and used, for an amount exceeding 26 million euros, the proceeds of which were reused by carrying out transfers mainly in China, justified by invoices for the purchase of goods. The same fraudulent operations, together with other acts of diversion of money and company assets, caused the bankruptcy of the company.

Finally, the administrative liability of the entities dependent on a crime was contested against the company involved in the fraudulent system: this is a specific form of culpability, attributable to entities with legal personality, in relation to some crimes strictly indicated by the legislator committed, in the interest or to the advantage of the same body, by natural persons who hold representation, administrative or management functions (“top management”) or by persons subject to the management or supervision of one of the aforementioned subjects (“subordinates”) , who must not have acted in their own exclusive interest or that of third parties.