Pavia, Carabinieri hunting for editorial scammers

The Operating and Radiomobile Unit of the Carabinieri Company of Pavia since May, 2018 has undertaken an activity aimed at identifying an association of people involved in the commission of editorial frauds aimed at selling unauthorized magazines depicting contents and emblems of the Police Forces and other institutions of the State to which they are substituted.

The members of the association operate by name and on behalf of a company regularly registered with the Chamber of Commerce and through which the real criminal nature of the conduct of the suspects is concealed.

The investigations made it possible to identify the top management and the remaining affiliates of this association, as well as to locate the two operating offices in Milan and its hinterlands. In total, 12 people were reported to the judicial authorities, all with specific police bias, in various capacities, from about 15 years committed to crime with the same modus operandi.

Predicting, stealing and abusing the trust of the victims, presenting themselves as members of the Police or other State Bodies, proposed by telephone publishing products consisting of subscriptions in compliance with the security sector and similar, for a fee of about 100 / 150 Euro to be paid in cash to the carrier in charge of delivery.

The same association, before refusal or desistance in the continuation of the payment of fees in the case of renewal proposal, posed legal and burdensome consequences, causing the unfortunate to pay large sums of money as beneficial solutions if compared to any disputes, conduct that configures the extortion offense. It has been ascertained that, using a procedure already prepared for this purpose, in many of these circumstances the suspects, with roles that can be interchanged according to their needs, made phone calls presenting themselves as lawyers or judges, thus succeeding in persuading the victims.

It should be noted that, through the courier identified, the aforementioned company, in the first 5 months of the current year, carried out around 2000 shipments throughout the country, on some of which, by sample, this Weapon obtained evidence by suffrage of the investigative hypothesis. It is not excluded that the company can make use of other private carriers.

It was ascertained how the company monitored, when drafting the contract with the carrier for the delivery service of the publishing packages, has budgeted and guaranteed a minimum of 15.000 shipments per year, an assessment that allows to estimate profits of more than one million Euros for sales only magazines and therefore net of any figures received through the above mentioned extortion conduct. For years, these profits have been the only source of livelihood of the suspects, who are dedicated exclusively to such illegal conduct.

Given the above, this weapon proceeded to perform local searches, home and personal against the persons identified and affiliated to the association, in order to find useful elements to confirm the hypothesis investigative, such as magazines, telephone directories, credit cards and current accounts on which illicitly capitalized money converges.

Pavia, Carabinieri hunting for editorial scammers

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