Italian Finance Police crack down on ‘fly-by-night’ companies in Ravenna. Assets worth 4.5 million seized

Tax fraud involving ‘fly-by-night’ companies is increasingly coming under the scrutiny of the Guardia di Finanza. Officers from the Faenza unit of the Guardia di Finanza, following an investigation coordinated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Ravenna, have executed a further preventive seizure order issued by the local court against seven individuals who, in various capacities, had taken part in a fraud scheme involving ‘fly-by-night’ companies.

A fraud which, as noted in the press release issued by the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza in Ravenna, is carried out by repeatedly ceasing commercial activities; after having accumulated debts with the tax authorities, cease their economic activities only in name, before continuing the very same business venture that had just been suspended under a different entity.

A fraudulent scheme designed to evade the payment of taxes due, the non-payment of which represents, on the one hand, the profit of those benefiting from the fraud and, on the other, the main means of unfair competition against operators who comply with the rules: free from the ‘burden’ of taxes, it is in fact possible to offer more competitive prices, with undoubted effects on employment levels and the soundness of the local economic and productive system.

In the most recent case, which involved no fewer than seven companies, the investigation was conducted through financial enquiries, the gathering of witness statements and the verification of documentary evidence; when cross-referenced with database records, this enabled the identification of the actual de facto directors and revealed how, in recent years, the latter had relocated their workshop from Faenza to Forlì: a circumstance which, however, was not sufficient to divert the investigators’ attention. On the basis of these findings, therefore, the entire business complex attributable to the most recently established company was seized, including machinery, capital equipment, receivables from third parties (namely the client companies located in the provinces of Bologna, Forlì-Cesena, Piacenza, Reggio-Emilia and Modena, as well as Ravenna), and financial assets, as well as the current accounts of all those involved in the fraud scheme, totalling 4.5 million euros.

This initiative, which also draws on the strategic partnership established with the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Ravenna and the Chamber of Commerce of Ferrara and Ravenna, forms part of a wider anti-crime framework based on an innovative approach to risk analysis and investigation, thanks to which it has been possible, in just 10 months, five separate preventive seizure orders aimed at recovering over 18 million euros of illicitly accumulated assets and placing ‘seals’ on newly established companies involved in ‘illicit supply chains’ with a view to their subsequent liquidation, including through specially appointed judicial administrators.