Tax evasion through invoices linked to non-existent operations. A maxi fraud that started from Oristano.

In fact, at the center of everything was the owner of a wholesale company in Oristano which closed its activities about two years ago during the checks. The investigations by the Fiamme Gialle, Oristano's Economic and Financial Police unit, analyzed the financial flows between the company and a series of suppliers (also Chinese) in various cities of the peninsula: Prato, Pistoia, Florence, Rome and Venice.

Most of the operations were attributable to de facto non-existent companies: shell companies that opened specifically to issue bogus invoices and closed within two years, before checks could be triggered. The companies invoiced sales for tens of millions of euros in favor of other Chinese residents throughout Italy, collected the earnings and transferred the money to China, making it untraceable. Then the owners disappeared into thin air.

«The system used by the "paper mills" was that of "open and close" - say the investigators - essentially, in the time frame of two years from the opening of the VAT number in the name of a nominee of Chinese origin, the companies invoiced sales for tens of millions of euros in favor of subjects scattered throughout the national territory , collecting the proceeds of the invoices issued and systematically transferring the money to the East in order to make it disappear . Once the "life cycle" ended in time to be able to escape the ordinary tax controls that would have revealed the inconsistencies between the invoices issued and the absence of tax returns and VAT payments, the "fictitious" owners became untraceable » .

The Fiamme Gialle were able to reconstruct invoice issues for non-existent operations for over 200 million euros, with the assessment of VAT evaded for over 37 million. A total of nineteen suspects (18 Chinese and an Italian tax consultant) : the charges are the issuing of invoices for non-existent transactions, omitted declaration, unfaithful declaration and self-laundering.

(Unioneonline/D)

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