Milan Public Prosecutor's Office investigates Amazon for smuggling Chinese products

The Milan Public Prosecutor's Office is investigating for the hypothesis of smuggling on the heads of Amazon for alleged irregularities in the movement in Italy of products that arrived from China and on which, through a complex mechanism of shell companies, neither VAT nor customs tariffs would have been paid. This morning, the Guardia di finanza of Monza, in the investigation of the public prosecutor Elio Ramondini, carried out, as anticipated by Reuters, searches in the Milanese headquarters of the e-commerce giant and seized 5,000 products in the pole of Cividate al Piano (Bergamo). Seizures of hundreds of thousands of products have already been made in the past in the investigation.

Basically, in the investigation, also conducted by the Customs Agency, it is alleged that Amazon, through its logistics centres, moved hundreds of thousands of Chinese products through its own transport channels or those of other companies in Italy, which, through a particular company scheme, allegedly arrived in Europe without paying VAT and tariffs.

Today, searches were also carried out at Amazon's Milan office (some managers are allegedly under investigation) with seizures of IT material for the investigation. This tranche of the investigation stemmed from the main line of enquiry, also coordinated by Prosecutor Ramondini of the Public Prosecutor's Office headed by Marcello Viola, against managers of Amazon and the company itself for alleged tax evasion of approximately EUR 1.2 billion. The Fiamme Gialle, in this dossier, had already carried out searches and document acquisitions to reconstruct the US giant's business from 2019 onwards, starting with the breakdown of sellers and tracing the routes of goods, to check whether or not regulations on taxes and duties, such as customs tariffs and VAT, had been complied with.