Investment-fraud to entrepreneurs, seizure of 18 million. Among the victims were Caterina Caselli and Giorgetto Giugiaro

The Special Currency Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza, in an investigation carried out by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, executed a preventive seizure order of approximately EUR 18 million against a person resident in Switzerland, 'founder of a corporate group and director of several Swiss companies'. The investigation showed that the suspect had set up 'a sophisticated corporate system, created ad hoc in order to place in Italy, through a large network of agents, different types of financial products, such as life insurance policies, derivative financial instruments, investment services in a Luxembourg fund, in the absence of the prescribed authorisations to operate out of office, towards entrepreneurs in Northern Italy in possession of large assets'. The offences at the centre of the investigation are 'fraud, abusive financial activity carried out on the territory of the State' and, as stated in a statement by Prosecutor Marcello Viola, 'failure to submit tax returns'.

Among the victims of the alleged financial investment scam perpetrated by Swiss-based broker Daniele Migani are singer and record producer Caterina Caselli, her son and former Siea president Filippo Nicola Sugar and a number of entrepreneurs. As well as car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. In particular, according to the indictment in the seizure order issued by Gip De Pascale, in the investigation by Prosecutor Polizzi, 'without the companies Xy Sa and Xy Eos Ticino Sa being authorised to carry out activities in Italy and without some of the natural persons' being registered 'in the single register of financial consultants, nor in the lists of agents and brokers, authorised to offer their services outside their offices', a long series of 'potential clients among entrepreneurs in Northern Italy in possession of large assets' were allegedly cheated.

The indictment lists dozens of names of managers, entrepreneurs, and professionals from various sectors who were victims of the deception, including, to name but a few, Luigi Filippo Orsi Mangelli Avera, from a family in the textile industry, and Federica Minozzi, entrepreneur of the Iris Ceramica Group and also starring in a television docu-series. According to the documents, from 2105 onwards, clients were offered 'financial products including insurance policies, arbitrages, bonus cap certificates and shares in the Luxembourg fund Skew Base'. Relationships would have been formalised and managed 'through the conclusion of two separate contracts between the client and the companies Xy Eos Ticino Sa and Xy Hub Uk Ltd, the latter replaced, after Brexit, by Xy Ers Deutschland Gmbh'. Also to the clients prior to the investments, the advantages of the financial services offered by the group would have been explained 'during meetings held in the national territory at the clients' premises'.