The European Public Prosecutor's Office, based in Milan, has ordered the seizure of assets and the arrest of six people, suspected of being part of a criminal association dedicated to committing a massive VAT fraud, for an estimated amount of over 40 million euros, which involves various states of the European Union.
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The investigations shed light on a suspected "carousel fraud", carried out through a complex criminal scheme with the aim of obtaining illicit advantages by exploiting the EU legislation on intra-community transactions, exempt from VAT.
The investigation made it possible to identify a plethora of companies based in Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland and the Netherlands dedicated to the sale of IT products to shell companies located in Italy and formally administered by nominees, who have failed to pay in Italy the aforementioned tax.
The fraudulent scheme envisaged a further step in which the goods were sold, below cost, in favor of other Italian companies, this in order to interpose (only from a paper point of view) further economic subjects in order to make it more difficult to identify the scheme and its users, and also by increasing illicit profits.
Subsequently the products were sold to Italian companies regularly operating at a very competitive price, as well as to other companies operating in the European Union, allowing them to achieve significant tax savings. The scheme also generated large VAT credits in Italy by the businesses involved, leading to significant profits which were then laundered.
The evidence collected during the preliminary investigations, also carried out with the help of wiretaps, led to six arrests and the execution of 60 searches carried out also in other EU Member States, in October 2022.
Subsequently, on 30 January of this year, the European Public Prosecutor's Office in the Milan office issued a preventive seizure decree which allowed the police forces to seize buildings, luxury cars, jewelery and cash, as well as to block positive balances of bank current accounts, for a total of 40 million euro. The preventive seizure decree was validated by the GIP of the Court of Milan on 11 February.
The real and personal precautionary measures, issued by the EPPO office in Milan, were carried out by the Guardia di Finanza of Milan, Varese, Bergamo, Como and Sesto San Giovanni.
The importance of this repressive intervention is to be connected to the insidiousness of the criminal phenomenon of the cc.dd. VAT carousel fraud (or intra-community fraud via “missing traders”) which is the most lucrative crime in the European Union, costing around €50 billion annually in lost revenue, according to the latest Europol estimate. ■