PORDENONE. He has sold paintings for more than 1.8 million euros in six years, from 2013 to 2018, has properties in Sacile and Venice, Sestiere Cannaregio, and his wife has an apartment in Lignano Sabbiadoro. In the same period it declared to the tax authorities total gross income between 9,425 and 6,236 euros per year. Professor Giovanni Granzotto, 70, a well-known art expert from Sacile, thus ended up under the lens of the financial police.
The prosecutor Federico Baldo accused him of having used fraudulent means, as sole director of the company Studioarte GR srl of Sacile, to evade income taxes (for 494,420.24 euros of unpaid taxes and 1,849.006 euros subtracted from taxation), and self-laundering for 284,761 euros. The preliminary investigations, entrusted to the Tenenza di Spilimbergo, have been closed and the Fiamme Gialle have reported administrative violations related to tax evasion to the Revenue Agency, for the fulfillment of competence.
On the basis of the complex bank checks on 64 reports in 18 credit institutions, the Fiamme Gialle, coordinated by the provincial commander Stefano Commentucci, believe that the professional has systematically carried out transactions for the purchase and sale of “black” paintings and works of art, using payment methods that leave no trace of commercial transactions.
Which? Finance has listed them in a note: in cash, with blank checks, used by the suspect for private purchases, or with bank transfers arranged on non-corporate private accounts, in the name of third parties, who then monetized the amount and paid it to the holder.
The investigators found the periodic and instrumental use of two companies under foreign law, the Gr Gallery New York and the company Art Studio GR Gallery New York. According to the prosecutor’s office, the Sacile company, without any mention in its obligatory accounting records, sent works of art for 899,500 euros to the USA, declaring a temporary export of exhibits to customs. The investigators, however, have not found any trace of the mandatory re-imports in Italy: for this reason they believe that it was a system to screen sales of non-invoiced works.
Prosecutor Baldo accused the suspect of having hidden works of art owned by the Sacilese gallery outside his headquarters. The investigators deduced it from the inventory of the paintings, carried out between April and July 2019: many works found in the houses of Sacile and Venice of Granzotto were accounting for the property of Studio d’Arte. The prosecutor has reconstructed that part of the liquidity deriving from tax evasion (284,761 euros) was used to cover the constant losses of the Sacile company. Hence the accusation of self-laundering (and the dispute of the related administrative offense).
Granzotto’s wife, Maria Pia Morassi, 75, a native of Tolmezzo, majority shareholder of the Art Studio, was investigated in conjunction with Granzotto for violations of the provisions on the prevention of money laundering, in particular those concerning adequate customer verification.
The spouses are accused of having indicated, in the banking form, a purpose of the transaction other than the real one (in four cases he, one she). In fact, the investigators believe that large financial flows to these strangers, deriving from the extra-accounting trade in works of art, have been made to pass through current accounts.
For tax crimes and self-laundering, the investigating judge Rodolfo Piccin, at the request of the prosecutor, ordered a preventive seizure for an equivalent amount in July 2020 for a total of 1,064,000 euros, of which 284,761 against Studio d’Arte. The seizure was carried out by the financiers on current accounts, securities and property of the suspect.
The Pordenone review court confirmed the precautionary measure, releasing instead the amounts referable to self-laundering. The judges acknowledged the existence of the crime, but ruled that it was not possible to determine with certainty the connection between the profit of the crime charged to the suspect and the settlement of business losses.
The seals on current accounts, securities and a quarter of Granzotto’s family home in Sacile remain. In 2019 the art expert, assisted by the lawyer Paolo Pastre, approached the Review for the first time, asking for the return of the documentation and IT supports, seized during the access of the Finance in April. The judges, however, rejected the request.
“The activity of the financial police continues aimed at identifying and persecuting tax evaders – write the Pordenone Yellow Flames in a note -, carried out both to safeguard the financial income of the State, but also, and above all, to protect the honest citizens who pay taxes ». The latest survey is part of this context, “a surgical action” which “represents the Corps’ concrete contribution to the recovery and relaunch of the country’s healthy economy” after the difficulties of the pandemic.