By CARLO BOFFA, EU Correspondent
ITALY’s financial police have dismantled a criminal network accused of laundering more than €200 million and channelling the funds to China through underground banking networks.
The gang used fake invoices and 41 shell companies to launder proceeds from tax evasion, bankruptcy offences, drug trafficking and organised crime, police said.
Officers from the Economic and Financial Police Unit of Lodi, a city in the northern region of Lombardy, arrested eight people in the operation, codenamed ‘Green river’. Precautionary measures were imposed on 44 individuals covering around €31 million in assets.
“The Chinese community is able to launder a significant amount of money from their own economic activities and repatriate the laundered sums to China by offsetting the cash returned to the recipients of the fake invoices against the transfers they made to the current accounts managed by the organization,” the police said.
A company based in Chiari, a town 60 kilometres east of Milan, sat at the centre of the scheme, managing all 41 shell companies. The firm issued fake invoices worth more than €200 million to a network of “client companies”, according to prosecutors.
The company used virtual IBANs to channel the sums abroad before returning them in cash to the same companies, withholding a 10% commission.
Virtual IBANs are popular among criminals because they mask the beneficial owner of an account, making it harder for law enforcement to trace the flow of funds linked to fake invoices.
Among those arrested was an Italian accountant responsible for the administrative and accounting management of the gang’s businesses.
Investigators seized financial assets, company shares, real estate, vehicles, luxury watches, jewellery. During the searches police found over €100,000 in cash hidden in buildings and cash.
The Lodi Public Prosecutor’s Office opened the investigation in 2024.
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