Edited by Sergio Silvestri

In some cases, the fiduciary system can be used for illicit purposes. Recent news reports indicate that the Finance Police of the Rimini Provincial Command, through Operation Brick Broken, uncovered a fraudulent scheme by which a San Marino fiduciary company allegedly facilitated the laundering of large sums of money: over €7.6 million was seized.
According to investigators, it all began with the bankruptcy of a corporate group in the province of Rimini, consisting of twelve companies operating in the residential construction sector. According to investigators, they were under-invoicing the sale of properties, receiving millions of euros in undeclared payments from their clients.

The money—as the Guardia di Finanza explained in a statement—was paid to a bank in Rimini. Some bank officials, like the smugglers of the last century, crossed the border and took the money to a trust company in San Marino. The trust company then deposited the funds in its account at a local bank, from which wire transfers were sent to a current account at the Rimini bank, also in the name of the San Marino trust company, to repatriate the funds to Italy under appropriately "shielded" conditions. From this account, the money was invested in bonds issued by the Rimini bank.

Investigators believe the transactions were documented by receipts specifically created to prevent the funds from being traced back to the tax evasion practices committed by the suspects, who headed the failed construction group. This mechanism concealed the illicit flow of money, which appeared to be entirely unrelated to the perpetrators of the ingenious fraud, as it was simply a transfer of trust funds from a foreign account to an Italian one. The Guardia di Finanza emphasizes that "the involvement of the local bank played a particularly significant role: the acting chairman of the bank's board of directors simultaneously served as chairman of the Board of Auditors of the main bankrupt company and as de facto tax advisor to the entire group of companies, allowing the credit institution to benefit, among other things, from the hidden funds, invested primarily in bonds issued by the bank itself and therefore directly earmarked to finance the institution's banking activities." In this way, "the funds thus disguised—a flow of over 20 million euros was ascertained—were illicitly subtracted from the bankruptcy of the Rimini-based group, which occurred in 2017, causing serious harm to creditors and the Treasury."

source: Guardia di Finanza Press Office