22 people were arrested for embezzlement involving several hundred million euros thanks to a well-established scam. The 22 suspects created fake companies, with the help of crooked accountants and notaries, and then applied for European subsidies.
Most of the money remained in Italy to buy villas, luxury cars, jewelry and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Italy is the European champion of subsidy scams with some 7 and a half billion euros misappropriated from European funds in 2023 alone. The equivalent of some 600 million euros already seized by the Italian police.