The company Age Limited, registered in Malta, is being accused of a large-scale €20 million fraud, having swindled the European Union. The directors of the Malta company appear in the companies’ registry as Johansen Annmari from Milan, and a British Virgin Islands company Bowey Holdings.
The Italian Guardia di Finanza investigated the fraud for two years, before the network of fraudsters was cought; according to investigators, it was led by Antonino Scimemi who financed the construction of two industrial plants with EU money. In reality, he did non invest anything in the project but instead directed most of the cash to various personal accounts. All these deals were made by him together with Giuseppe Sala De Cesare, a company representative for Energia Pulita Srl, and Sebastiano Cocola, an adiminstrator of Heron Srl.
Antonio Scimemi is said to make use of false fiscal invoices to justify the alleged expenditure on the project. Both companies, Energia and Heron, acquired services from Age Limited, which provided false invoices for work which was never made. Goods and services provided by Age Ltd were invoice at much higher price than their real cost, and there were products and services that were never delivered.
These invoices were to be presented to the financing bank administering the EU funds. After the bank would pay the invoices, Age Ltd would transfer the funds to its BVI-registered shareholder Bowey Holdings, and to Nordheim International and Gaphill Holding in Panama. Then the money would go back to the bank accounts of San Marino, and invested into the companies SGM Srl and GM Srl, which were both owned by persons in Scimemi’s network.
As the above scheme of the fraud was presumed, the orders for seizures were received by the limited liability companies Energy Pulita, GM, Heron, and SGM.