Effective synergistic action, between the provincial command of the Guardia di Finanza of Bari and the local public prosecutor's office, aimed at stealing the wealth illicitly accumulated by organized crime to safeguard the legal economy.
From 1 January 2022, the Guardia di Finanza of Bari, a body institutionally called upon to counter illegal phenomena attributable to "lucrogenic crime", has carried out seizure measures (criminal, preventive and pursuant to the legislation on the administrative liability of entities) for over 300 million euros, in implementation of a by now consolidated operational synergy aimed at the systematic aggression of illicitly accumulated assets. This is the emerging picture, this week and in the Apulian capital, following the press conference at the Bari prosecutor's office. The prosecutor Roberto Rossi and the commander of the economic-financial nucleus of Bari Luca Cioffi took part in the same of tax fraud, crimes against the public administration, organized crime offences, undue compensation and assignment of fictitious tax credits and related money laundering, fraud in the fuel sector, crimes against the public administration and organized crime offences, this is the scope of the investigations coordinated by the Bari public prosecutor's office.
The "Double extraction" operation of the Economic-Financial Police unit of Bari of the Guardia di Finanza made it possible to discover a management program, used by several dentists and designed by a computer engineer, for keeping an accounting system hidden from the official one. The aforementioned allows you to create specific customer files, in which – in addition to the certified services – by pressing the F12 key and entering a password, it is possible to report the fees that you intend to subtract from taxation. The system is programmed to store "parallel" accounting on external supports (pendrive e hard drive), easily removable in case of control by the tax authorities.
There are significant cases of fraud and money laundering associated with the circulation and monetization of tax credits.
In particular, the offenses that frequently emerged during the course of the investigations refer to:
construction work necessary to confer the right to deduct not started; receivables subject to multiple "chain" assignments involving companies with the same registered office and/or with the same legal representatives, established in a short period of time, which have resumed operations after a period of inactivity or which have recently formally "reconverted" to the construction industry, whose shareholders or directors have no property, cannot be found and/or have a criminal record;
properties on which the subsidized interventions would have been carried out not attributable to the original beneficiaries of the deductions or, even, non-existent results;
infiltration of organized crime in the marketing of petroleum products through the adoption of a series of tricks, of false documentation and technical devices, in this context we recall the operation of last February 2022 of the Bari PEF Unit which would have made it possible to ascertain the functioning of an alleged criminal association of a transnational nature which would have carried out transfers of lubricant bases - originating from Eastern Europe – formally directed, in the majority of cases, to Greek or Maltese Cypriot companies, but in reality destined in Italy for automotive use in favor of compliant companies operating in the sector of fuel sales and road distribution with consequent millionaire evasion of excise duties due.
An ability to transversally read economic events has been developed, associated with a preventive phenomenal analysis of the delinquent dynamics of the reference territorial context, also through the enhancement of the information assets deriving from reports of suspicious transactions. This is the current operational approach of the Corps, in defense of the legal economy of our country and for the entire reference area.
Photo: GdF archive
