Police arrest 43, seize 520 million euros in Europe-wide probe into mafia and tax evasion

MILAN (Reuters) – Police across Europe arrested 43 people and seized 520 million euros ($547 million) in a European investigation into a criminal conspiracy to evade VAT through money laundering and mafia activity, the European public prosecutors' office (EPPO)and Italian police said on Thursday.

They said the investigation concerns tax fraud in the trading of IT products and electronic devices within the EU and involves around 400 companies with 200 suspects, mainly in Italy and several European countries, but also in the United Arab Emirates.

According to European prosecutors, those arrested are also facing charges of facilitating the Naples-based mafia Camorra and the Sicilian Cosa Nostra by investing their profits in VAT fraud.

Many investigations in Italy have shown in recent years how mobsters have moved aggressively into the low-risk, low-key world of white-collar crime.

"It has been a while since we started to ring the alarm bell about dangerous organised crime groups' heavy involvement in fraud to the EU budget", European Chief Prosecutor Laura Kövesi said in a statement.

"We now shed light on a first such big case", she said, adding there was no division between "the world of the really bad and dangerous criminals smuggling drugs, trafficking people on one side; and the world of white-collar criminals, 'merely' corrupting and laundering money, on the other side".

Of those arrested, 34 are being held in prison, nine under house arrest, while four others have been banned from working. Some of the arrests were made in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Spain and Bulgaria, EPPO said in a statement.

Guardia di Finanza police said they found false invoices by the companies involved amounting to 1.3 billion euros from 2020 to 2023.

In addition to the money, the financial police said they also seized real estate complexes on the Sicilian and Ligurian Rivieras, on Lake Como and in Milan.

More than 160 searches were carried out throughout Italy and further searches and seizures were made in Spain, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Cyprus and the Netherlands, as well as in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, Eppo said.

Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti congratulated the police authorities and prosecutors in a statement on his X profile.

($1 = 0.9515 euros)

(Reporting by Emilio Parodi, editing by Alexandra Hudson)