The Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies announces that an international investigation coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of North Naples and carried out by the Guardia di Finanza of Caserta and by the Central Inspectorate for the protection of Quality and Fraud Repression of the Mipaaf (ICQRF ) to shed light on the importation of sugar from Croatia, Mauritius, Serbia and Slovenia to adulterate wine through a network of businesses and people in Campania, Puglia, Sicily and Veneto.
36 are the suspects, for various reasons, for crimes of criminal association, fraud in the exercise of trade, sale of non-genuine food substances as genuine, fraud in registers and notifications, fraudulent declaration through the use of invoices for non-existent transactions, omitted tax declaration, issue of invoices for non-existent transactions and self-laundering. Under seizure of real estate, financial reports and shareholdings attributable to suspects for more than 12 million.
According to the investigators, the people involved imported the sugar of foreign origin and then conveyed it to a company based in Sant'Antimo (Naples) through the fictitious interposition of national "paper mill" companies, formally active but not in fact operational and found to default on tax obligations. Through this complex system, they would have succeeded in marketing sugar to winemakers by evading taxes and extremely competitive prices. In turn, the entrepreneurs would have used the sugar purchased for the sophistication of the wine, by increasing the alcohol content, as well as for the production of musts, concentrated musts and liquid grape sugars.
"Thanks to the commitment and determination of the women and men of the ICQRF, who worked in synergy with the other forces of the Order involved in the operation - comments Deputy Minister Andrea Olivero - we are able to repress fraud and effectively counteract the unfair competition demonstrating the utmost attention to consumer protection "