Logistics: three seizures for tax evasion and the illegal supply of labour

Three more seizures in the logistics sector, with a total value of 28 million.

The investigations, coordinated by the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office and carried out by the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Milan Guardia di Finanza (in collaboration with the Italian Revenue Agency), have exposed a system of tax evasion, which ultimately centres on the well-known phenomenon of the illegal supply of labour, into which the Milanese investigators have been probing for over three years, leading to a series of seizures (which in most cases were followed by settlements with the tax authorities and the INPS).

This time, the Italian group Bcube (with two managers under investigation); the multinational Fiege Logistics Italia (with its legal representative under investigation); and the Italian company Bonzai, part of the same group as Bcube (with two managers under investigation), are under investigation. The disputed invoices cover the period from 2020 to 2025 and involve numerous operators.

The investigations centre precisely on the use, by the final beneficiaries, of the unlawful scheme involving invoices ‘for legally non-existent transactions’ linked to the unlawful supply of labour (by unauthorised parties), when in reality the logistics companies should have had in-house staff to carry out their core business.

In reconstructing the ‘labour chain’, it was found that employment relationships with the ‘client companies’ were ‘shielded’ by ‘filter companies’ which in turn made use of various co-operative societies (‘pool companies’), which systematically failed to pay VAT, as well as social security and welfare contributions. The contract is designed to boost the client’s workforce whilst simultaneously ensuring savings on labour costs, the outsourcing of industrial and trade union matters, and lower tax payments.