GdF

Superbonus: massive fraud scheme worth over half a billion euros uncovered, involving more than 60 shell companies

The operational hub, however, was in Abruzzo: two professionals from the province of Chieti, authorised to access the Revenue Agency’s platform for the sale of tax credits. They are alleged to have sent over 2,000 communications, each for a fee, thereby generating fictitious receivables in the tax records of the ‘enforcement’ companies

by Rome Editorial Staff

11 June 2026

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

2' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Around sixty shell companies that were allegedly involved in building renovation projects across Italia, from Como to Syracuse. The trouble is that they had neither a registered office nor any employees. This is at the heart of the investigation that led the Syracuse Financial Police to seize over half a billion euros in tax credits linked to the 110% Superbonus, which were never backed up by any actual work.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the organisation is alleged to have devised a sophisticated fraudulent scheme capable of exploiting loopholes in the regulations governing the transfer of tax credits to generate, with a single click, tax credits that were non-existent but could be used without issue within the tax system.

The network of shell companies

The investigations – carried out in collaboration with the Special Unit for Revenue Protection and the Suppression of Tax Fraud in Rome and the Revenue Agency’s Illegal Activities Unit – identified over 60 companies spread across the country. Many, according to the investigation, were mere shell companies: no operational headquarters, no machinery, no employees. Yet, on paper, they appeared to have carried out multi-million-euro refurbishment works on 22 apartment blocks spread across Bergamo, Como, Macerata, Messina, Monza Brianza, Padua, Pavia, Rome, Salerno, Syracuse, Varese, Vercelli and Verona.

The properties actually existed, and in many cases were undergoing genuine building work. However, the companies involved in the actual building sites would have had nothing to do with the fraudulent scheme. The land registry data and technical information were allegedly ‘cloned’ without the knowledge of the property managers and owners.

Professionals, frontmen and the chain of transfers

According to investigators, the organisation was run by a group of professionals based in Lombardy, tasked with recruiting frontmen to whom the companies could be formally registered and, if necessary, who would bear criminal liability.

The operational hub, however, was in Abruzzo: two professionals from the province of Chieti, authorised to access the Revenue Agency’s platform for the transfer of tax credits. They are alleged to have sent over 2,000 communications, each for a fee, thereby generating fictitious receivables in the tax records of the ‘enforcement’ companies.

Once created, the credits were passed on to the most sensitive stage: their transfer to third parties, who would either use them to settle genuine tax debts or cash them in by selling them on, thereby converting the illicit gain into cash.

The last-minute block

The Syracuse Public Prosecutor’s Office intervened before the debts entered the debt transfer system, where they would effectively have become irrecoverable. Four emergency preventive seizure orders were issued, all of which were validated by the investigating magistrate, whilst the Revenue Agency implemented an immediate electronic freeze.

An operation which, according to investigators, prevented “significant” financial loss to the Treasury: hundreds of millions of euros which, once dispersed through a chain of transactions, would have been impossible to trace.

The 12 suspects are charged with criminal association, aggravated fraud against the State, money laundering, self-laundering and issuing invoices for non-existent transactions.