© Reuters. A woman pushes a shopping trolley outside the Esselunga supermarket in Pioltello, near Milan September 13, 2016. Picture taken September 13, 2016. REUTERS/Flavio Lo Scalzo
MILAN (Reuters) – Milan’s Guardia di Finanza (Guardia di Finanza) on Friday carried out a seizure of 47.7 million euros from the Esselunga supermarket chain, as part of an investigation conducted by the Milan prosecutor’s office into irregular employment contracts and tax fraud.
The operation is described in a press release from the public prosecutor’s office, while the seizure decree, read by Reuters, identifies the company.
Esselunga in a note states that it “immediately took action to offer the widest collaboration to the judicial authorities”, adding that it is confidently awaiting further investigations “in the knowledge that it has always operated in compliance with the law”.
The investigation, reads the note, concerns “the phenomenon of the illicit supply of labour”.
The investigations, the statement said, uncovered “a complex tax fraud characterized by the use” by the company “of invoices for non-existent operations and the stipulation of fictitious labor contracts … which led to the issue and use of non-existent invoices for a total amount of over 221 million euros, plus VAT exceeding 47 million”.
The note adds that, by reconstructing the labor supply chain, it emerged that employment relationships with Esselunga were sometimes shielded by filter companies which in turn made use of cooperatives, while other times the company turned directly to the cooperatives, who did not pay VAT and often not even social security and welfare contributions for workers.
The investigation, according to the decree, sees among the suspects two managers who signed the VAT declaration, the first for the years from 2016 to 2021, the second for 2022, and the Esselunga Spa company itself, based on the law on the liability of entities .
In addition to the kidnapping, the note reads, the soldiers of the Gdf carried out a series of searches against the suspects and the company in the provinces of Milan, Novara and Bergamo.
(Emilio Parodi, edited by Andrea Mandalà)