Italian financial police from Venice have arrested 22 people in Austria, Romania and Slovakia. The fraudsters are said to have outsmarted the control system using a network of fictitious companies.
The police spoke of illegal sales of over 600 million euros, the sum of which was confiscated. Officers also confiscated expensive apartments, luxury villas, watches, gold, jewelry and exclusive sports cars during the searches. The group also used “advanced software that made it possible to reduce the time required to create and falsify documents for loan applications to zero,” says chief investigator Marco Stella. The Simest Group, responsible for the disbursement, said: “So far, 17 million euros have been blocked to 80 companies, out of a total of 2.7 billion euros intended to support 6,900 Italian companies.” The crooks are saidto have been very clever, explains chief investigatorMarco Stella. Among other things, unsuspecting front men were installed, including an entrepreneur from South Tyrol and his Ukrainian partner.