ANCONA (ITALPRESS) – The military of the finance guard of the Provincial Command of Ancona have discovered a parallel banking institution based on a Ponzi scheme, capable of enlivening more than 4 million and to involve more than 500 people on the entire national territory. As part of the operation, called “Golden Tree”, personal precautionary measures, seizure of current accounts and observance of the online platform used for illicit activities were carried out. According to the reconstruction, the criminal association would have created a parallel and free banking institution, with branches also in Poland and Bulgaria, able to offer services typical of the financial sector: opening of foreign current accounts, granting of loans and investment proposals. The organization operated behind the facade of a alleged “community” aimed at the well-being of its affiliates.
In fact, behind this structure a fraudulent system was concealed that proposed high-performance investments, presented as particularly advantageous and remunerated through the causal “cashback”, in an attempt to evade the controls of the Yellow Flames. Determining would have been the relationship of trust established by false financial promoters with the victims, belonging to the most different age groups – from 20 to 85 years – many of whom would invest personal savings, pensions or, in some cases, money obtained through loans. The investigations showed a real Ponzi scheme, spread in many Italian provinces, including Ancona, Rome, Milan, Palermo, Naples, Turin and Bari. The system was self-powered thanks to word-of-mouth and social networks, transforming the same investors into promoters, encouraged with compensation proportional to the number of new recruited customers and the sums paid.
The transaction also contributed seemingly professional tools, such as a personalized physical debt card and a digital application that simulated a home banking service. The mechanism, however, would have been arrested when repayment requests exceeded new payments: At that point, the promoters would no longer return interest or capital. The sums confluted in the availability of the alleged dominus of the partnership would be used for personal expenses, for the organization of convivial events aimed at attracting new investors and highly speculative investments, including the purchase of physical gold and cryptocurrencies. At the end of the operation, four persons were referred to the Judicial Authority for the crimes of financial abuse, abusive banking, fraud and self-reclamation. The search, carried out between Marche, Abruzzo and Lombardy, led to the application of precautionary measures against two subjects, the seizure of 15 current accounts in Italy and Poland and the observance of the online platform used for the alleged fraud.
– photo press office Guardia di Finanza –
(ITALPRESS).
