The soldiers of the Economic-Financial Police Unit of Brescia and of the Central Organized Crime Investigation Service of the Guardia di Finanza carried out, in the provinces of Brescia, Bergamo, Milan, Cremona, Pistoia, Verona, Bolzano, Reggio Emilia, Prato and Udine, a local and personal search order, issued by this District Attorney's Office, against 31 subjects (21 natural persons and 10 legal entities), held responsible, in various capacities, for criminal association composed of Chinese citizens, abusive provision of payment services , self-laundering and money laundering, all aggravated by the transnational nature of the crime.
The Fiamme Gialle investigation, launched in November 2022, made it possible to reveal the existence of a criminal association, made up of n. 21 entities and branched out throughout the national territory, which, in carrying out an illegal banking activity at the hubs used by the aforementioned association, offered a real "service package", as follows:
– to members of the Chinese community of the aforementioned Italian cities, through a series of abusive payment services, as they are only permitted to authorized credit/electronic money/payment institutions;
– to further criminal associations dedicated to the issue and use of ff.oo.ii., with monetization services thereof and laundering of the related illicit proceeds.
The specificity of the revealed system therefore lies in the reuse of the cash collected from the Sinic community located on the national territory. Once the liquidity has been collected in the various hubs, this would be used to fill the monetization needs of the fake invoice sector, the payments of which would have already been previously introduced into the financial circuit under investigation and, consequently, drained from the national economy, evading its anti-money laundering protection.
The investigations of the Guardia di Finanza have, moreover, made it possible to reconstruct the system and, consequently, the financial circuit used by the same association to implement such illicit conduct. In particular, following the collection of cash carried out from their compatriots, intending to transfer money from Italy to China with the guarantee of anonymity, the members would have resorted to two operational methods of transfer of the same, based, on one part on the use of encrypted IT applications, on the other on the typical characteristics of the “Fei Chen” system consisting of an untraceable money transfer on a fiduciary basis.
As a result of the searches, three individuals of the same nationality were arrested on the initiative, in flagrante delicto, for money laundering. Four subjects of Chinese nationality were, however, reported respectively for practicing gambling, money laundering and two for illegal entry and residence in the territory of the State.
The Fiamme Gialle, with the collaboration of the cash dog dog units, also seized over 1,2 million euros, as well as 6 Rolex model watches of significant value, dozens of IT devices and smartphones, as well as 5 money counting machines.
The judicial police activity has, therefore, brought out a new money laundering phenomenon which sees some Chinese citizens as the main interlocutor. The money collection and transfer activity carried out by the latter would have led to the creation, throughout the national territory, of abusive Chinese banks which, using parallel financial channels, circumvent the anti-money laundering prevention system, bypassing the established safeguards.
Such criminal conduct, which is highly detrimental to national and EU economic-financial interests, would allow not only the untraced leakage of a large quantity of capital from the borders of the EU, but also the facilitation of criminal associations dedicated to further criminal activities. of an economic-financial nature.
