Chronicle of an announced seizure: seals at the Port of Rome

Maxi seizure by the Guardia di Finanza on the coast of Ostia (Rome), with large deployment of men and means, this morning: seals were triggered for 19 companies and companies related to the management of the tourist port of Rome – Already seized in 2015 – and some Ostia lidos (they are also seizing 531 properties, bank accounts and still other assets totaling 450 million euros!).

ONCE AGAIN BALINI
The order came from the Court of Rome – Specialized Section for Prevention Measures: in the eye of the storm, once again, Roman businessman Mauro Balini. A remand order had already been issued against Balini last July (along with him three other arrestees) on charges of “conspiracy to commit fraudulent asset and document bankruptcy, money laundering, use of money, goods and utilities of illicit origin, and fraudulent transfer of valuables.” The entrepreneur had then been released from prison in August: the charges remained standing but, according to the Court of Liberty (reasons at the end of the month), were not such as to justify detention.

AND WHO HAS THE BERTH?
Now, who has a berth at the Port of Rome? Last year, the port had continued to operate after the judge appointed two administrators to keep the port open to ensure the operations of the commercial and accommodation facilities there. It might seem the best solution at this juncture as well

HAD BEEN INVESTIGATED SINCE 2012
One reads in Rome Today regarding the 2015 arrest: “The investigations, started in 2012, for a “hypothesis of bankruptcy,” made it possible to ascertain how the four accomplices had “knowingly led to the bankruptcy of A.T.I. S.p.a.,” a company that had overseen the construction of the Tourist Port of Rome and which, until 2008, was the concessionaire of the infrastructure, belonging, moreover, to a group of companies traceable to Balini himself. The latter himself, with the complicity of trusted collaborators and professionals and thanks to “front men” and “shell companies,” had carried out a “complex corporate scheme aimed at fraudulently diverting substantial resources, both patrimonial and financial, to the detriment of the bankrupt A.T.I. S.p.a., creditors and the Treasury, for a final liability of more than 155 million euros.” Balini, according to investigators, would appear to be at the center of it all. The entrepreneur was, in addition, “charged with the crime of fraudulent transfer of values, for having registered in the name of apparently third-party companies, the prestigious penthouse on the Ostiense coast in which he lives, which was also fraudulently subtracted from A.T.I.,” and a luxurious catamaran, in his exclusive possession, purchased, in large part, “with resources subtracted from the bankrupt through the described fraud scheme.”

ORIGINS SINCE 2005
According to the Finance Department, the criminal scheme was born in 2005, when Balini “preconstituted a huge credit to A.T.I. S.p.a. for more than 28 million euros, simulating, among other things, the assumption of a debt in the bankrupt’s head originated from the receipt of false invoices issued by companies traceable to his loyal associates.” By justifying the transactions as “repayment of shareholder financing,” Balini had, therefore, been able to “withdraw large sums from company coffers as well as divert real estate from the company’s assets to other enterprises that are traceable to him.”

PORT ENLARGEMENT
In 2008, in perfect harmony with the ongoing criminal plan, Porto Turistico di Roma S.r.l., owned by Balini himself, had obtained, from A.T.I. S.p.a., the “turning over of the concession on the entire port infrastructure, and had, thus, taken over the possibility of carrying out the port expansion, later authorized in August 2013, cashing in the consequent huge profits.”

THE PORT OF OSTIA
The current facility covers an area of about 22 hectares and has 840 berths for lengths ranging from 8 to 60 meters. The port expansion will increase its capacity to 1419 berths, providing approximately 611 new berths for recreational boats between 12 and 70 meters long. To get a sense of the scale of the wrongdoing and the economic damage caused to A.T.I. S.p.a., Porto Turistico di Roma S.r.l. has “estimated the commercial value of the concession related to the expansion of the port at about 200 million euros and the commercial value of the concession related to the surface rights and use of the state-owned property subject to seizure at about 220 million euros.”