The Finance Police of Treviso denounced 51 entrepreneurs for having received – without having the right to – or used – for unauthorized purposes – over 1.5 million euros of state aid, in the form of secured loans o contributions to lost fund to face the Covid emergency. Another 15 entrepreneurs, responsible for minor irregularities or who received sums of less than 4 thousand euros, were reported for the imposition of an administrative penalty. In the cases discovered by the financiers, many companies had no right to obtain the benefits but, through false self-certifications or omission of information on the real economic conditions, they managed to get the loans disbursed. Others, despite having the right to do so, have used the liquidity obtained for purposes completely unrelated to business needs.
Among the numerous violations ascertained, the most frequent case is the one found in 28 companies who, at the time of submitting the loan application, declared that they had no previous losses, not dependent on the Covid-19 emergency. Instead they were already in a state of difficulty. They got it like that loans for 780 thousand euros, which the State, in its capacity as guarantor, will be forced to return in the not remote hypothesis in which companies are unable to do so. Confirming this risk is the fact that one of these companies was put into voluntary liquidation as soon as it received the loan. Three paper companies, included in a mechanism for issuing false invoices, obtained guaranteed loans for 129 thousand euros and requested a further disbursement of 400 thousand euros. An entrepreneur presented false data on his business which in fact was never carried out, another presented the application with a non-existent VAT number, still managing to get 11,500 euros. Another has ‘exhumed’ a company that has been inactive for 5 years, obtaining a refreshment of 4 thousand euros. Some entrepreneurs, to show the decrease in turnover in the first months of 2020, compared to the same period of 2019, have canceled all the invoices issued at the beginning of 2020, deferring them to the following months. Many then used the sums obtained for personal purposes, such as buying cars and expensive cell phones, investing in highly speculative stocks; transfers of the money obtained to their family members who then used them to buy clothes and household products. An entrepreneur used the funding guaranteed by the state for 25 thousand euros, spending it all on online games. Finally, a Chinese citizen paid the contribution into current accounts in banks in his country of origin.
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