Assets worth 700 thousand euros were confiscated from Gioia Tauro entrepreneur Santo Furfaro58 years old, accused in the “Galassia” trial which arose from an investigation conducted by the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza with the support of the SCICO. This is an investigation coordinated by the DDA of Reggio Calabria which has dismantled a sophisticated and highly profitable criminal system aimed at the illicit collection of online bets, through important foreign bookmakers based in Austria and Malta, which allegedly operated in a bilateral relationship with the ‘ndrangheta.
Executed by the Guardia di Finanza, the measure was issued by the Prevention Measures section of the Court of Reggio Calabria and concerns the entire business complex of a sole proprietorship and two companies, all operating in the sector of management and maintenance of gaming machines, as well as 15 lands located in the province of Arezzo. Assets that had been seized in January 2023. In relation to the criminal association, Furfaro is on trial today because, according to the prosecution, he played the role of promoter and organizer of the illicit betting collection system. According to the investigations coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Stefano Musolino and the deputy of the DDA Sara Amerio, the criminal organization would have offered a sort of “environmental protection” to the gaming company, allowing the expansion of distribution points on the territory and guaranteeing, through intimidation, the recovery of gaming credits.
The same organization would have obtained a monetary compensation, infiltrating companies, enjoying a privileged channel for laundering dirty money, profiting from the profits and inserting its own representatives into the territorial commercial network. According to the Prosecutor’s Office headed by Giovanni Bombardieri, even after the adoption of the first judicial measures against him, the entrepreneur from Gioia Tauro would have continued to carry out his entrepreneurial activity in the online betting sector, regenerating himself from an entrepreneurial point of view through the establishment of new legal entities in the formal ownership of his close relatives. In doing so, through a complex system of corporate ramifications, Furfaro, according to the prosecution, would have continued to maintain commercial relationships, making profits, with the companies now confiscated. Furthermore, the investigations have made it possible to detect how the entrepreneur, without having suitable legal financial resources, had made significant real estate acquisitions.