Maxi-operation "Golden Hands" by the Financial Police: seizure of 37 million

A preventive seizure of money and movable and immovable assets for approximately 37 million euros and over 40 searches in nine provinces throughout the national territory, from Bergamo to Lecce, passing through Padua, Ravenna, Rimini, Cesena, Caserta, Naples and Taranto. It is the balance sheet of the maxi-operation "Golden Hands" of the Financial Police of Ravenna, which dismantled a complex system of fictitious companies used as manpower reservoirs for real companies. The scheme involved the illicit hiring of workers and consequent tax savings. The money was then laundered thanks to paper companies who issued false invoices for tens of millions of euros. At the moment 22 people are under investigation, including two professionals.

The Fiamme Gialle investigations brought to light the existence of numerous companies which, despite being formally active in the mechanical construction sector, actually represented real manpower reservoirs, involving a total of around a thousand workers including welders, carpenters and workshop labourers. The workers were mostly of foreign origin and were hired or fired depending on the workloads of the real companies involved in the scheme. In fact, these were the only ones who actually had the means and organization available to carry out orders or subcontracts.

Thanks to the system described, real companies enjoyed significant tax savings. Furthermore, they had the necessary manpower available without having to resort to regularly authorized agencies or having to take on any obligations towards workers, such as salary and social security protections and the obligation to be employed on a permanent basis.

The scheme, however, was broader and more complex and did not stop at the illicit supply of labour. The money collected thanks to the supply of personnel was only partly intended to pay the workers and was recycled thanks to a sophisticated underground banking system which involved around 1,200 additional economic entities and saw the transfer abroad of over 80 million euros in two years.

In Naples and Bergamo, through 155 paper mill companies, first of all false invoices were issued for non-existent operations for a total of approximately 130 million euros and subsequently, after several transfers to various bank accounts, part of the money was returned in cash net of a commission fluctuating between 14 and 22 percent. The paper mill companies then avoided paying the taxes due by resorting to fictitious tax credits (for around eleven million euros).