ROME: Italy’s financial police on Thursday froze over 70 million euros worth of assets in a sting targeting 17 people suspected of dodging tax on imports from China, including clothing.
The freeze followed an investigation into a large-scale customs and tax fraud scheme led by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Rome and code-named “Dragone” (“Big Dragon“).
Police in Rome and Florence executed a freezing order of 71.05 million euros ($76.76 million) targeting “17 suspects, four Italians and 13 of Chinese origin,” said an Italian police statement.
The suspects “are under investigation for participating in a criminal organization committing multiple tax offenses related to the import of goods, such as clothing, footwear, bags and various accessories,” said an EPPO statement.
Investigators allege that “a criminal enterprise of Chinese entrepreneurs created a network of 29 companies operating in the provinces of Florence, Prato and Rome, to evade customs duties and VAT,” or value-added tax, it said.
The Chinese goods were cleared through customs in Bulgaria, Hungary and Greece and then transported to logistical hubs in Italy.
They were then moved multiple times “between fictitious operators, accompanied by invoices for non-existent transactions,” EPPO said.
“To avoid detection, the companies involved only existed for around two years before being replaced by new ones to allow the fraudulent scheme to continue,” it added.
Italy police bust $76.76 million China tax dodge scheme
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Italy police bust $76.76 million China tax dodge scheme
- The freeze followed an investigation into a large-scale customs and tax fraud scheme led by EPPO
- The suspects “are under investigation for participating in a criminal organization committing multiple tax offenses “
Mass shooting at a South African bar leaves 11 dead, including 3 children
- Another 14 people were wounded and taken to the hospital
- The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl
CAPE TOWN: A mass shooting carried out Saturday by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital left at least 11 people dead, police said. The victims included three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
Another 14 people were wounded and taken to the hospital, according to a statement from the South African Police Services. Police didn’t give details on the ages of those who were injured or their conditions.
The shooting happened at a bar inside a hostel in the Saulsville township west of the administrative capital of Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday. Ten of the victims died at the scene and the 11th died at the hospital, police said.
The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. Police said they were searching for three male suspects.
“We are told that at least three unknown gunmen entered this hostel where a group of people were drinking and they started randomly shooting,” police spokesperson Brig. Athlenda Mathe told national broadcaster SABC. She said the motive for the killings was not clear. The shootings happened at around 4.15 a.m., she said, but police were only alerted at 6 a.m.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, authorities say.
There have been several mass shootings at bars — sometimes called shebeens or taverns in South Africa — in recent years, including one that killed 16 people in the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2022. On the same day, four people were killed in a mass shooting at a bar in another province.
Mathe said that mass shootings at unlicensed bars were becoming a serious problem and police had shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
Recent mass killings in South Africa have not been confined to bars, however. Police said 18 people were killed, 15 of them women, in mass shootings minutes apart at two houses on the same road in a rural part of Eastern Cape province in September last year.
Seven men were arrested for those shootings and face multiple charges of murder, while police recovered three AK-style assault rifles they believe were used in the shootings.
