Mafia-style criminal association busted, 12 custody orders executed

At the end of a complex investigative activity directed by the District Attorney’s Office of Brescia, the Economic and Financial Police Unit of Brescia and the Central Service for the Investigation of Organised Crime are giving execution of a personal precautionary measure order against 12 individuals investigated for having formed a mafia-style criminal association aimed at committing tax crimes.

The activity is developing in the provinces of Brescia, Turin, Verona, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Cremona, Milano, Monza-Brianza, Mantua, Varese, Catania and Reggio Calabria, as well as in Spain and Switzerland, with the employment of approximately 300 soldiers, with the support of the European Union Agency for Judicial Cooperation, the International Police Cooperation Service within the framework of the I-Can project (Interpol Cooperation Against ‘Ndrangheta), and the Spanish and Swiss police forces.

The companies and individuals involved, approximately 70, in the tried and tested system of “invoices for non-existent transactions”, are also subject to preventive seizure, aimed at confiscation, even for equivalent, for a total amount of over 8.5 million euros, as proceeds of the criminal conduct investigated. The measures carried out are the epilogue of complex investigation activities, including transnational ones, started in June 2019, which concerned the operations in the Brescia area of ​​a‘ndrangheta-type criminal association, originally from the province of Reggio Calabria, dominant in the area between the municipalities of Melia di Scilla and San Roberto, at the top of which was a person already convicted of mafia-style association by the Court of Reggio Calabria.The investigative activity has allowed us to document the genesis and the rise of the association that, by leveraging the intimidating power that derives from the associative bond, he would have first damaged, then overwhelmed and finally excluded from the business connected to tax fraud a previous criminal association, operational since 2017 in the industrial district of the north-east. In particular, the subjugation of this criminal group would have been achieved through various criminal actions, promoted and directed by the leaders of the newly formed mafia consortium, such as:

• a simulated robbery carried out against a courier who had collected cash for approximately 600.000 euros – the result of the monetization of invoices for non-existent transactions – from Chinese individuals living in Milan’s Chinatown, availing himself, in this circumstance, of the collaboration of some associates within the first association;
• theft of credentials of bank accounts opened in Bulgaria where the proceeds of the criminal plan were diverted, thanks to the help of a Bulgarian accountant and the legal representatives of the foreign paper mills;
• serious intimidating conduct, perpetrated through the display of firearms during meetings with members of the first gang, in order to force the members of this consortium to transfer the entire “package” of previously managed companies and to submit to the newly formed mafia-style association.

The investigative activity developed overall, also through the use of wiretaps, Bank checks and seizures of cash for approximately 450.000 euros, intended for the Reggio Calabria gangs, has thus allowed for reconstruct the scheme of the complex fraud. In detail, the mafia-style association, after having completely replaced the first consortium, made use of over 30 companies including foreign paper mills (located in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Switzerland and Croatia) and Italian filters which, during the investigation period, have issued invoices for non-existent transactions in the plastics trade sector for over 365 million euros in favor of compliant entrepreneurs, located mainly in the provinces of Brescia and Mantua.

Multiple searches are currently underway in Italy and abroad, conducted with the technical-operational support of SCICO, the aid of modern technological instruments and three anti-drug and “cash dog” canine units for the search for narcotic substances and cash, in a security framework also guaranteed by the use of the so-called “green berets”, military personnel with ATPI “Anti Terrorism – Emergency Response” specialization, and a helicopter from the naval component of the Corps.