The Lamborghini Ponzi scheme and the Mafia’s (dis)reputation
They pretended to be members of Calabrian mafia clans to avoid returning the money to the victims of the fraud
by Stefano Elli
Key points
What makes this case unusual is not so much the use of a Ponzi scheme (see the factsheet below) to defraud others, but rather the fact that the scheme was carried out using the hire of luxury cars (Lamborghini Huracáns and other luxury cars) as its underlying mechanism. The nine pre-trial detention orders (three in prison and six under house arrest) executed by the Economic Crime Unit of the Guardia di Finanza and the Bergamo Mobile Squad, at the request of Public Prosecutor Carmen Santoro and approved by Bergamo’s investigating magistrate Luca Bonifacio, together with the preventive seizure of 1.6 million, mark the conclusion of a case that began in 2023 and involved numerous individuals who were persuaded to invest their money in the luxury car hire sector.
The reconstruction
According to the investigators’ findings, one of the organisation’s key members would approach clients, claiming to be a financial adviser, and offer them investments in the car hire business, promising returns of between 2 and 7 per cent per month. The money, however – as the investigators have established – ended up directly in the suspects’ bank accounts. Only a portion of the scheme was passed on to investors as capital gains. Reassured by the supposed soundness of the investment they had made, and through the classic mechanism of word of mouth, they also involved friends and relatives in the rental scheme, unwittingly leading them into the same trap.
Threats and beatings
Anyone who tried to reclaim their money was brutally beaten and threatened with death by individuals who boasted of their affiliations with the Piromalli clan of Gioia Tauro. To operate in the area (the same scheme had originated in Bergamo but had also been extended to Sesto Fiorentino, Arezzo, Brescia, Florence, Mantua, Lecco, Monza Brianza and Vibo Valentia), a network of companies was active (Sedicidodici Srl, Bitcorporate Srl, Theo Srl and Logitech Service Srl), all effectively managed by Antonio Trabucchi, whom investigators regard as the organisation’s key figure. A distinctive feature of the first three is that their Ateco codes included the number 663000.
The Ateco code
This is the code assigned to companies operating in the mutual fund sector. This is something they could clearly never have been involved in, as they were neither a SIM (securities brokerage firm) nor an SGR (asset management company) and, therefore, did not hold the necessary authorisations from Consob to operate. It was probably this very fact that gave rise to the misunderstanding: by presenting themselves as specialists in the asset management sector, they somehow gained credibility in the eyes of investors as specialist financial advisers.
The ploy
And perhaps the use of a leasing arrangement rather than financial instruments in the strict sense would have been a ploy to avoid incurring the penalties provided for in the Consolidated Law on Finance. This was not the case, however, because the alleged offences also include unauthorised financial activities, which are punishable by imprisonment for between one and eight years. This is probably because the concept of a financial product in Italia is not limited to standardised financial instruments (shares, bonds, units in investment funds or derivatives) but also encompasses other investments. Consob’s approach in this regard is based on an assessment of the objective terms or contractual mechanisms relating to the specific transaction under consideration.
