Criminal association aimed at financial unauthorization, fraud, money laundering and self-laundering and a network of financial companies, including those under foreign law, aimed at procuring customers.
This is what was revealed by the investigations, under the direction and coordination of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Cagliari, the State Police and the Guardia di Finanza who carried out personal and property precautionary measures against six people (one custody in prison, one measure of house arrest and four of compulsory residence in the municipality of residence). Four other suspects were instead reported on the loose. The preventive seizure of assets and financial resources for a total amount of over 4,500,000 euros was then carried out by the Fiamme Gialle.
THE INVESTIGATIONS - Thanks to the financial companies, the suspects exercised, in the absence of the required authorizations, a financial activity promoting the sale of financial instruments on the promise of high profits, equal to 5% gross monthly, repaying unwary investors, ideally reassured by particularly favorable returns in a very short time, with funds raised from new customers and therefore applying, in sequence, the well-known "Ponzi scheme" with a system of "circle" of money that stands up until the chain of collection.
In fact, at the first annual maturity of the investment, only some investors have regained possession of part of the invested sums and most of them have not obtained any return, nor the return of the capital raised throughout the country, for a total value of approximately 5 million euros.
THE CRIMINAL SODALIZATION - The criminal association, structured in a pyramidal way, saw at its top the "dominus" of the companies, a 51-year-old man , believed to be the promoter and organizer of the illicit system and, at a lower level, his closest collaborators: his 41-year-old brother and 46-year-old sister, all resident in the province of Cagliari. Also a 51-year-old woman, resident in the province of Varese, responsible for "marketing" of the "game"; a 47-year-old man living in Como, co-founder and co-owner of some companies offering illegal financial investments; and yet another man of Saudi nationality, 48, residing in Switzerland and who managed the flow of money from the illegal collection of savings and a 39-year-old man residing in Olbia, who conceived the initial investment project, as the formal owner of a Slovenian company.
Furthermore, three financial promoters were involved, two men and one woman, respectively 39, 35 and 33 years old, residing in the Oristano area and in southern Sardinia.
The investigative activity carried out by the Postal and Communications Police Department of Cagliari was born following the reports of fraud filed by various citizens of Cagliari.
The investigations then revealed hundreds of other swindled investors across the country. The hearing of witnesses, the execution of countless telephone and telematic wiretapping activities then made it possible to reconstruct the illicit scheme used and the network set up by the suspects.
FOREIGN COMPANIES - Financial and asset investigations were simultaneously delegated by the Public Prosecutor's Office to the economic-financial police unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Cagliari, consisting of the analysis of the movements of money transited on the current accounts of the subjects and companies involved, the results of which are been crossed with the in-depth analysis of suspicious transaction reports forwarded by financial intermediaries, enriched with information acquired through international cooperation channels useful for finding from the network of foreign Financial Intelligence Units, in implementation of national legislation and the European Union anti-money laundering Directives , the information needed to combat, among others, the phenomena of money laundering and the reuse of illicit proceeds by criminal organizations, predicate offenses associated with it and terrorist financing.
In this way, additional foreign companies are identified, managed by nominees and used to conceal the origin of the unlawfully collected capital and prevent its traceability.
THE SEQUESTERS - Among the assets seized there are financial resources, company shares and a hotel structure located in the Cagliari hinterland, with an estimated value of about 1,500,000 euros, whose acquisition by the dominus of the criminal association took place through the involvement of a figurehead.
(Unioneonline / vl)