Brussels, 11/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) announced on Tuesday evening that it was at the origin of the dismantling, in Italy, of a network of illegal banana trafficking with ramifications in Spain, France, Portugal and Monaco. While stating that other inquiries were in progress, it explained that, in June 2000, its agents discovered an illegal banana trade which, during almost two years, brought in hundreds of millions of euros to those responsible. In the beginning, the Italian authorities believed they were about to discover a cocaine smuggling ring.
With the complicity of customs agents and ministry officials, of whom 10 were arrested in the countries involved, the network (at the head of which there was an Italian tradesman) obtained false import certificates for bananas benefiting from a reduced duty of 55 euros a tonne, instead of 850 euros (we would point out that the Community regulations authorise importers holding valid import licenses to apply a reduced customs rate compared to the rate applied to undue imports). Importers holding permits pay 55 euros a tonne instead of 850 euros. According to a press release from the Guardia di Finanza de Catane, fraud involved 53,000 tonnes of bananas.
Fabio Scavone, Deputy Public Prosecutor of Catania, declared "We've been able to find out how a small village shopkeeper from the provinces has managed to build up a real empire from nothing and control the trade in bananas in the whole of central and southern Italy. Thanks to OLAF, we've learnt that this type of activity is linked to other countries such as France, Spain and Portugal. We've also managed to understand what at first wasn't very clear, that more profit can be made from this type of fraud than from serious crimes such as importing a tonne of cocaine". According to OLAF, the complexity nature of Community regulations, and the transnational nature of the fraud throughout the whole of EU territory greatly helped the fraudsters. Although it was the Italian authorities that carried out the investigation, OLAF stresses that it brought all its expertise to bear in the Community regulation, its transnational operation approach and the multinational composition of its investigators.