On 6, 7 and 10 February 2020, the State Police, Anticrime Police Division-Prevention Measures Office, availing itself of the Guardia di Finanza, Economic-Financial Police Unit, implemented Decree no. 1/2020 RDS of Section II of the Court of Agrigento - MP Section issued on 29.01.2020, with which the application against BURGIO GIUSEPPE was born, born to born in Porto Empedocle (AG) on 14.02.1964, in deed subjected to home detention, the personal prevention measure of the special PS surveillance for 3 years with residence obligation, as well as the asset prevention measure of the seizure of assets, aimed at confiscation, pursuant to the Code of Anti-Mafia Laws and Prevention, pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 159 of 2011.
The prevention procedure had been initiated on the proposal of the Quaestor of Agrigento in 2016, when the Quaestor had submitted a request for a personal preventive measure to the Court of Agrigento and immediately afterwards another concerning a property measure on assets directly attributable or indirectly to the proposed.
The Quaestor, the proposing authority pursuant to the Anti-Mafia Code, made use of the investigations carried out by the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza, in particular by the Economic-Financial Police Unit, with regard to the economic and entrepreneurial activity, the financial and assets of the known Burgio Giuseppe, who had set up a series of companies operating in the sector of large-scale food distribution, in this province and in the neighboring ones.
Following the initiation of criminal investigations by the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza, the arrest of the entrepreneur in October 2016 and the sentence of May 2018, with which the Court of Agrigento sentenced him to the penalty of 8 years of imprisonment for bankruptcy crimes, the MP Section Court asked the Quaestor for additions and further asset investigations.
The proposal also reported convictions for the crimes of failure to pay tax and social security withholdings, continued embezzlement, trade in products with false signs, violation of tax and tax legislation
In line with the recent jurisprudential guidelines expressed by the Court of Cassation regarding asset prevention measures, the contents of the proposal have been reworked, enriching them with new elements, in particular with what emerged also during the criminal trial and then "delimiting the social danger" of the proposal, expressed from the years between 2004 and 2017, a period in which a series of profit-genetic crimes fall.
To satisfy, moreover, the need to demonstrate the so-called "temporal correlation" between the danger expressed during the years indicated and the illegal conduct, distracting of large sums of money, carried out with a series of "bad management" operations that had allowed to set aside sums and to reinvest them in transactions for the purchase of goods and the opening of current accounts, all the transactions carried out in that time perimeter were examined, distinguishing them year by year, specifying their income and purchases, deemed to be the result of illegal activity and that constituted its reuse.
The results of the activity were filed in March 2019, with an additional proposal containing the contributions of the Guardia di Finanza, with which it was specified that the assets whose seizure was requested were the result of the re-use of the illegal provisions accumulated in those years, through the distraction of sums from the assets of the companies GESTAL Srl, INGROSS Srl, CDASpA and HO.PA.FSrl, which should instead have been a guarantee for creditors and third parties.
In charge of the proposed, the Court of Agrigento has expressed a judgment of "qualified" social danger, as suspected of the crime of fictitious registration of goods in order to facilitate the crime of money laundering. BURGIO Giuseppe was recognized as responsible for the distraction of significant amounts for a total of € 11.582.176,55 entered into with a series of deeds consisting of accounting operations, transfers, transfers of currency and real assets from one company to another of the business group.
The Court therefore ordered the seizure of the following real estate and movable assets:
- 5 properties with a total value, declared in the registry deeds, of € 5.247.000,00, located in Agrigento, Porto Empedocle (AG), Palermo and Gela (CL), all attributable to HO.pa.f. srl (12-room apartment, located in via Minerva in Agrigento; 5-room apartment, located in via Minerva in Agrigento; real estate complex intended as a shopping center, called "Le Rondini", partly rented as a business unit, site along the SS 115, in Porto Empedocle (AG); incomplete building destined for a shopping center, consisting of a single reinforced concrete structure, located in via Venezia in Gela (CL), in front of the PS Police Station; 2-room apartment and terrace, located in Vicolo Morici, 2, in Palermo, Ucciardone area);
- 15 vehicles with a total purchase value of € 198.000,00;
- jewels and precious items with a total purchase value of € 21.288,00;
- 11 bank / insurance / investment relationships worth € 65.000,00;
As regards the n. 11 bank / insurance / investment relationships were seized at various credit institutions.
With the current revaluations envisaged by the Land Registry's Real Estate Market Observatory, the present value of the real estate compendium reached by the measure amounts to approximately EUR 8.700.000,00
The college of the 2nd Criminal Section of the Tribunal for Preventive Measures, in the aforementioned decree of 29/01/2020, also appointed a Judicial Administrator who, with the constant assistance of the staff of the State Police and the Guardia di Finanza, it is already placed in the possession of the goods.