US EditionFlorence Cathedral Scammed Out of £26million as Italian Police Arrest Nine in Raid
Nine suspects from four nationalities face charges in a €30 million fraud using fake invoices and email scams to target Florence Cathedral's managing NGO, police said.
- On Dec 11, Italian police said they broke up an international criminal organisation that swindled about €30 million from Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, and on Thursday nine people were arrested under warrants from the Brescia prosecutor's office.
- Police in Brescia launched an investigation in March 2025 after the non-profit organisation was tricked into paying €1.75m for work on the Complesso Eugeniano and criminals received nearly 1.8 million by impersonation.
- Investigators uncovered loan-sharking and laundering links to Chinese criminal organisations in raids at various companies, with suspects including Italian, Albanian, Chinese and Nigerian nationals and a 10th still sought.
- None of the suspects have been publicly named by police; authorities recovered about €500,000, leaving the organisation short of almost €1.5 million, according to prosecutors in Brescia.
- Police seized more than €500k in cash, adding to €200k seized from a 37-year-old Chinese citizen stopped in September, while Brescia chief prosecutor Francesco Prete warned money laundering is worsening.
16 Articles
16 Articles
Discovered a criminal partnership based in Lombardy dedicated to tax fraud and money laundering. Intercepted the maxi transfer of the entity. In the Italian, Chinese, Albanian and Nigerian clique. Wherever there was money to clean up there was the multinational via Asiago in Milan. There, in the vicinity of the home of Chunhui Hu, one of the four Chinese citizens involved, the proceeds of the maxi recycling system were distributed that the 13 in…
The fraud allegedly took place over a period of 6 months with money laundering and the issuance of false receipts – 9 people in temporary detention
It has yielded 30 million euros, in six months, the scam against the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, the Onlus that manages the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore,...
Issue of invoices for non-existent operations, recycling and autocycling. That's why the State Police is running in the provinces of Brescia, Milan, Bergamo, Lodi, Prato, Rieti and...
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