Milan, Feb. 26 (LaPresse) – The Milan Prosecutor's Office has ordered the urgent preventive seizure of over €46.8 million from DHL Express Italy, the shipping branch of the logistics multinational controlled by German postal service Deutsche Post, due to a suspected VAT fraud between 2019 and 2023 involving non-existent invoices related to labor supply contracts. The decree, issued by prosecutors Paolo Storari and Valentina Mondovì, was carried out on Tuesday by the Financial Police's Economic and Financial Police Unit in Milan. The 56-year-old Padua-based manager, Luca Bassini, who signed the VAT declarations during the years under investigation, is under investigation for fraudulent declaration using invoices for non-existent transactions. The company is held accountable under the administrative responsibility law for entities. This is the latest investigation by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office into the logistics sector and the "fraudulent mechanism" within labor contracts, which allegedly causes "significant losses to the state" and "situations of labor exploitation" for the sole benefit of the "client company," as stated in the 50-page decree, which will be reviewed by a judge in the next 10 days. In 2021, DHL Supply Chain Italy (another Italian subsidiary of the group) was targeted in a probe with a seizure of over €20 million, confirmed by the Court of Cassation. Since then, several multimillion-euro seizures have been carried out against logistics companies, large retailers, private security firms, and food industry companies like GLS, Schenker, Esselunga, BRT, Geodis, UPS, Bennet, GS, and others, totaling nearly €600 million.
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