Italian police bust 440-mln-euro Covid aid fraud

Italian police said Wednesday they have got busted a chief operation to defraud a central authority scheme to assist companies at some point of the coronavirus pandemic, recuperating extra than 400 million euros ($430 million).

Twelve human beings have been arrested as part of the edge in opposition to a crook community based in Rimini, northern Italy, which defrauded the Italian state of a total of 440 million euros, the financial crimes police said.

Some 97 percent of this has been recovered, police said, from property to vehicles and cryptocurrencies — as well as gold, platinum and luxury watches held in a safe deposit box in Austria, which cooperated with the operation.

“The organized crime group used Italian companies to sell false tax credits, to simulate business leases in order to obtain Covid-19-related compensation, and to simulate tax credits for false works to improve the safety and energy consumption of the companies,” explained EU agency Eurojust, which helped with cross-border issues.

European Union countries which includes Italy spent billions of euros assisting corporations while the advent of coronavirus in early 2020 prompted tremendous shutdowns throughout the economy.