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Police across Europe have seized luxury apartments, villas, Rolex watches and sports cars in investigations into an alleged criminal network.
About 22 people were arrested Thursday after police raids in Italy, Austria, Romania and Slovakia.
Eight suspects were detained and 14 were placed under house arrest.
The group is suspected of embezzling €600m (£515m) from Italy’s coronavirus recovery fund between 2021 and 2023.
The raid was carried out as part of a larger international investigation led by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Venice.
Officers worked with police forces across Europe to carry out dozens of raids and recover millions of dollars in assets.
Italy’s financial police said officers seized an apartment, a villa, a Rolex watch, Cartier jewellery, gold and virtual currency during the raid.
Luxury cars including a Lamborghini Urus, Porsche Panamera and Audi Q8 were also seized.
Assets seized in Thursday’s raid also included luxury watches.
The EPPO announced that a group of criminals had set up a fake company to secure millions of dollars in subsidies from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) for Italy.
From 2021 to 2023, they submitted false corporate balance sheets to show that their businesses were eligible for financing.
In fact, these companies were “set up solely to defraud European taxpayers,” said Andres Ritter, Europe’s deputy chief prosecutor.
The criminal organization is suspected of using “sophisticated technologies” such as virtual private networks, foreign cloud servers and artificial intelligence software to support its activities, the EPPO report said.
Once the suspects received the funds in Italy, they transferred them to bank accounts in Austria, Romania and Slovakia.
A network of accountants, service providers and notaries allegedly assisted the suspects. As a result of the investigation, one accountant was banned from practicing.
Italy’s financial police on Thursday seized assets worth more than €600m (£514.4m) in raids across Europe.
The EU’s RRF was established in 2021 to spend €723.8bn (£620.6bn) across the region after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted business around the world. Italy is the largest single recipient of the fund.
According to its 2023 annual report, the EPPO has 1,927 ongoing investigations involving suspected fraud worth €19.2bn (£16.5bn).
By the end of last year, around 206 of these investigations concerned fraud related to post-COVID-19 EU-funded projects.
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