The Police and the Customs Agency arrest 7 people in Italy, Romania and Austria
Today, the Bolzano State Police arrested seven individuals (four Italians, two Romanians and one Austrian) seriously suspected of being part of a criminal association aimed at carrying out systematic fraud on the VAT and excise duties on products alcohol by means of a very lucrative tax carousel designed and built by two citizens of Campania origin, through the beer trade between Austria and Italy first and between Germany and Italy then. The association made use of a Romanian component which had the task of procuring complacent persons, for the benefit of which "paper mills" companies were opened without any actual activity. The scam consisted of sending articulated lorries loaded with alcoholic beverages (in particular beer) under a tax suspension regime, stocking them in a compliant tax warehouse located in Austria and returning them to Italy without paying the VAT and Excise.
Subsequently alcoholic beverages were placed on the market at a price considerably lower than the market value as affected by the non-payment of taxes, generating an economic advantage for the suspects, with equal damage for the PA, estimated by the Customs Agency among the 2 and the 3.000.000 of Euro over five years.
The international judicial police operation was carried out also thanks to the collaboration of the equivalent foreign police services coordinated and supported by Eurojust and with the intervention of the Austrian and Romanian FAST Teams by the International Police Cooperation Service - SIRENE-ENFAST (European Network of Active Fugitive Research Units).
In addition to the personal precautionary measures, the GIP of the Court of Bolzano also ordered the preventive seizure for the purposes of confiscation of the profit from the tax carousels obtained through the missing companies quantified in Euro 1.634.184, to be carried out on the accounts of the aforementioned companies or other " paper mills ”belonging to the suspects.
During the searches, mobile phones, credit titles, credit and payment cards, a Range Rover car and documentation useful for the continuation of the investigation were seized.