Money laundering from illegal activities between Calabria and Veneto. This is the accusation of which the 21 people judged by the Court of Crotone replied in the trial resulting from the operation called Cyclops, conducted in April 2018 by the Guardia di Finanza. The investigation, launched in 2015, led to 17 arrests out of 25 suspects and the preventive seizure of goods for a total value of 12 million euros, including 118 vehicles and 3 companies placed under judicial administration.
With the sentence issued today, the judges inflicted 19 convictions and pronounced two acquittals but excluded the crime of criminal association aimed at tax offenses for some of the main defendants. In fact, the investigation hypothesized an alleged criminal association active in tax fraud and in the recycling of illicit proceeds, with activities concentrated in the municipalities of Cutro, Isola Capo Rizzuto, Crotone, Rocca di Neto, but also Belfiore and Cologna Veneta (Verona). The Guardia di Finanza quantified the amount of tax evades in 5,599,591 euros.
The investigation, launched thanks to reports of the financiers of Verona, has analyzed numerous suspicious flows (transfers and checks issued between 2011 and 2015) attributable to the same companies involved. The architects of the scam would have been Antonio Aversa De Fazio, entrepreneur from Melissa who moved to Veneto, considered the promoter of the alleged system, e Alfredo Minervino di Cutro, considered the long manus of Aversa De Fazio in Calabria. Aversa De Fazio was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment for the false invoices referring to the years 2013-2015, with confiscation of goods for over 3.3 million euros, while for Minervino, sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment, the confiscation amounts to 939 thousand euros.