The Modena State Police, directed by the Public Prosecutor's Office, carried out a precautionary custody order issued by the GIP at the local Court against 10 subjects, (9 under house arrest and one in prison), believed to be involved in a criminal association with operational base in Modena aimed at committing crimes of fraudulent bankruptcy, money laundering, self-laundering, forgery of public documents and certificates, fraudulent subtraction from the payment of taxes.
The investigation, conducted by the policemen of the Mobile Squad, began in 2016, allowing, through the use of multiple means of searching for evidence, (acquisition of documentation of bankruptcy procedures, analysis of telephone records and financial flows, telephone wiretapping and present in the lawyer's office, statements made by people informed about the facts, shadowing and observation services, searches and seizures and technical advice, analysis of the correspondence stored on the seized computers), to acquire serious evidence of guilt against of the ten under investigation for having created a stable organization capable of providing assistance to entrepreneurs whose companies were in trouble, to allow them to distract from the company assets large assets that otherwise would have had to flow into the bankruptcy assets available to the mass creditors, including the Treasury; all with serious prejudice to the creditors themselves.
These entrepreneurs, determined to avoid having their entire assets dissipated, requested the "paid services" offered by the criminal association which operated, in the specific accusatory hypothesis, of two Modenese lawyers (one of whom as promoter of the association subsequently disbarred following previous convictions), a notary from Modena, an engineer from Bologna and two accountants (one from Modena and the other from Milan), as well as some nominees used permanently both to take over the administration of companies from entrepreneurs bankruptcy, both as legal representatives of new companies specifically set up to acquire the assets transferred by the companies in decoction, or to transfer the distracted assets abroad.
The former lawyer and his collaborators, on the pretext of saving the companies, presented instrumental agreements with the sole purpose of postponing the necessary declaration of bankruptcy of the companies involved; in the meantime, the residual financial resources of the companies were subtracted from creditors through systematic bank transfer provisions apparently justified by the issue of invoices for disproportionate amounts by the professionals of the group or by the companies controlled by them, or by means of rental contracts and / or sale of a company whose sole purpose was to steal the residual assets from corporate creditors.
As a result, when the bankruptcy of the companies managed by the suspects finally intervened, the bankruptcy assets were zeroed and the companies presented themselves as "empty boxes".
At the same time, again thanks to the complex corporate network managed by the criminal group, the resources thus distracted from the creditors were reused in financial activities managed by the former lawyer and his accomplices abroad, and in particular in Bulgaria.
Moreover, the complex commercial operations with which the resources were stolen from the failed companies, often were not recognizable by the bankruptcy trustees appointed by the competent Courts, who, although highlighting anomalies in their reports, were not able to realize how the individual transactions examined were in reality expression of a plan aimed solely at impoverishing the bankrupt company. This is also thanks to the systematic use by the criminal association of acts whose dating was falsified (preliminary sales contracts, invoices, commercial lease agreements, mandates to sell, company lease agreements) through the use of a forged seal with the imprint referable to the Post Office of Summaga, a small fraction of the Municipality of Portogruaro (Venice).
The entire turnover made it possible to verify the movements of money for several million euros.
Today's operation was called Trust as one of the tools used by the suspects to protect the assets of some entrepreneurs from any actions by creditors and / or bankruptcy trustees consisted in the establishment of Trusts managed by Bulgarian companies headed by the association and in particular to the dismissed lawyer who promoted it.