General framework
International tax evasion, carousel fraud, undue compensation, customs offences, illicit traffic in petroleum products, illegality and abusive practices in the gaming and betting sector are some of the most serious and widespread phenomena on which the Guardia di Finanza focuses its attention.
The activity of the Corp is developed both through investigations of the judicial Police and through verifications and fiscal controls, in the ambit of plans of intervention, targeted and selective, directed towards subjects characterized by elevated and concrete profiles of dangerousness, thanks also to the help of the analyses of risk elaborated by the Special Units and to the systematic exploitation of the informative results and of the probative material acquired in all ambits of the institutional mission. In fact, tax offences are often instrumental to the commission of other economic and financial crimes, such as money laundering, corruption, bankruptcy and the misappropriation of public funds.
Equally important is the advanced and integrated analysis of the information present in the operative databases, the interoperability of which is assured by the "Dorsale informatica". In this context, mandatory electronic invoicing is of particular importance: by cross-referencing electronic invoice data with other available databases, it is possible to identify, in a much easier and more timely manner, persons at risk, to reconstruct commercial chains and to trace the ultimate beneficiaries of fraud schemes; moreover, the time between the moment when fraud is committed and the moment when the tax authorities are able to intercept the typical signs of fraud has been significantly reduced, and this makes it possible to avoid that unlawful conduct may continue over time, causing significant damage to the Treasury.
The instruments of support to the operative activity are completed with the data acquired through international cooperation, in the ambit of which, apart from the numerous bilateral agreements stipulated by the Guardia di Finanza with foreign collaterals, a fundamental contribution comes from the experts stationed at the principal Italian embassies.
On this basis, the Units of the Corp carry out investigations to neutralize any economic advantage deriving, also in a mediated way, from the tax crimes, using all the measures of patrimonial contrast provided for by the regulations in force, among which the confiscation for equivalent and the confiscation for disproportion, as well as the measures of patrimonial prevention provided for by the anti-mafia legislation.
The most recent investigations show, in fact, that "profit crime", including tax crime, tends to disperse or transform illegal gains, resorting to techniques of no less complexity than those used for the commission of source crimes. Hence, the need to carry out accurate financial and patrimonial investigations against the beneficiaries of the most insidious fraudulent systems, in harmony with the investigative projection of an economic-financial police force of general competence.