The Turin prosecutor's office has ordered a preventive seizure of assets worth 74 million euros as part of the investigation into Gianni Agnelli's inheritance .

The measure concerns the brothers John, Lapo and Ginevra Elkann , the accountant Gianluca Ferrero and the Swiss notary Urs Robert Von Gruenigen.

The crimes contested are tax fraud and fraud against the State .

According to the accusation, also the subject of Margherita Agnelli's complaint, Marella Caracciolo (who passed away in 2019) was not resident in Switzerland but in Italy "at least since 2010", therefore in her succession the Swiss law should not have been used but the Italian one. For the magistrates, at present "the existence of a complex strategy has been revealed, aimed at representing, under a strictly formal profile, the Swiss residence of Marella Caracciolo", as stated in a note from the Turin prosecutor's office. In light of the investigations carried out so far by the Guardia di Finanza, considering that her residence was in Italy «at least since 2010», it was estimated that since 2015, with regard to «income taxes», « an evaded Irpef (proceeds from the crime of tax fraud) has been quantified for a total of approximately 42.8 million euros , deriving from the subtraction from taxation of a life annuity received by Marella Caracciolo (amounting - in the years from 2015 to 2019 - to over 29 million euros) and capital income (for approximately 116.7 million euros) deriving from financial assets held by a trust based in the Bahamas».

As regards " inheritance and gift taxes, evaded taxes of over 32 million euros were computed , on an inheritance mass reconstructed at over 800 million euros, given by the availability indicated in the inventory of the inheritance drawn up by the Swiss executor, by the shares of a Luxembourg investment fund, by the detected post-mortem divisions among the heirs of works of art and jewels of considerable value and by the assets of a Luxembourg real estate company".

(Online Union)