Police across Europe arrested 43 people and seized 520 million euros in a European investigation into criminal conspiracy to evade VAT through money laundering and mafia activity, according to The Independence.
The European public prosecutors’ office (EPPO) and Italian police said on Thursday that the investigation concerned tax fraud in the trade of IT products and electronic devices within the EU. The investigation targeted around 400 companies with 200 suspects, mainly in Italy and several European countries, but also in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
According to European prosecutors, those arrested also face charges of aiding the Naples-based Camorra Mafia and Sicilian Cosa Nostra by investing their profits in VAT fraud. Many investigations in Italy in recent years have shown how gangsters have aggressively infiltrated the low-risk, low-restraint world of crime, according to European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kavesi.
It has been a while since we started to ring the alarm bell about dangerous organised crime groups heavy involvement in fraud to the EU budget. We now shed light on a first such big case.
Of those arrested, 34 are in jail, nine are under house arrest and four are banned from working. Some arrests were made in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Bulgaria, EPPO said in a statement.
Guardia di Finanza police reported finding false invoices from the companies involved, totalling 1.3 billion euros between 2020 and 2023. In addition to the money, the financial police said they also confiscated property complexes on the Sicilian and Ligurian Rivieras, on Lake Como and in Milan.
According to EPPO, more than 160 searches were conducted across Italy, with additional searches and seizures in Spain, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.
