Fight against money laundering, more than 500 illicit transactions worth EUR 1 million detected in Brescia

The military of the Brescia Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza, following targeted info-investigative activities, concluded two important operations aimed at intercepting funds of illicit origin capable of polluting the legal economy. In a first context, the officers of the Brescia Economic and Financial Police Unit concluded an inspection of an operator active in the payment services sector (so-called money transfer) that allegedly made money transfers outside the ordinary banking circuit. The intervention made it possible to exploit the results of the information exchange with the O.A.M. - Organismo Agenti e Mediatori (Organisation of Agents and Mediators), identifying a systematic conduct of the economic operator that allegedly circumvented the legal requirements for the transfer of cash.

The illegal activity was allegedly carried out through the technique of so-called 'smurfing' (splitting), which the controlled agent carried out through multiple transfers of funds by splitting them into several sub-threshold transactions and using different financial channels, in order to evade the controls and limitations provided for in Article 49 paragraph 2 of Legislative Decree no. 231/2007, which impose transfers made through agencies, within the maximum limit of 1,000 euro. In total, more than 500 anomalous suspicious transactions were reconstructed, channelled through different payment institutions, for a total value of about €1,000,000 and mainly destined to Asian countries.

In the same activity, the financiers also found repeated failures in the 'customer due diligence' procedures, as the agent repeatedly failed to correctly identify the beneficial owner of the transfer. This non-compliance led to the imposition of administrative fines of up to a maximum of EUR 70,000.

In a second and distinct context, developed by the Rovato Company, a tried and tested tax fraud and money laundering mechanism was instead uncovered, which resulted in the execution of 35 interventions aimed at verifying numerous conducts that emerged regarding the above-threshold transfer of cash. In this context, it was ascertained that numerous companies operating in the construction sector had been set up and managed, which had issued invoices for non-existent transactions amounting to more than EUR 250 million, also connected - in some cases - to fictitious interposition of labour. Thus, a money laundering scheme amounting to over EUR 96 million was reconstructed, carried out through the 'underground banking' scheme involving the circulation of significant amounts of cash through unofficial channels. This scheme involves the systematic channelling abroad of payments received against invoices for non-existent transactions issued. The sums channelled are then systematically monetised and remitted in Italy in the form of cash through a network of 'intermediaries' and 'currency couriers', thus resulting in a continuous breach of the existing anti-money laundering provisions limiting the use of cash. Therefore, subsequent inspection activities led to the arrest of 25 subjects, identifying sums unduly transferred for a total value of more than EUR 9 million.