Campari shares worth €1.3bn seized by police over alleged tax evasion
Shares worth €1.3bn (£1.1bn; $1.5bn) in the company that controls the Campari maker have been seized over alleged tax evasion, Italian police said.
Authorities ordered the seizure of shares in Luxembourg-based Lagfin as part of a year-long investigation into how the Campari Group acquired its Italian arm.
The company is accused of not paying a similar figure for shares seized as taxes during the merger. The company has previously stated that it has always fulfilled its tax obligations.
Campari, which also makes alcohol brands such as Aperol, Grand Marnier and Courvoisier, said neither it nor its subsidiaries were involved in the case.
However, according to local media reports, president Luca Garavoglia is also among those under investigation.
The BBC approached Lagfin, which owns more than 50% of Campari shares and 80% of the voting rights, for comment.
In a statement regarding the investigation published last year, it said that it had “always fulfilled its tax obligations with the utmost care in all the regions in which it operates” and that it considered any claims to the contrary to be “without any basis”.
Prosecutors in Milan launched an investigation into the company last year. Financial police said on Friday it claimed to have found €5.3 billion in undeclared capital gains for which the so-called “exit tax” imposed on firms moving their headquarters abroad between 2018 and 2020 had not been paid.
The company is also accused of transferring Italian assets to foreign ownership solely for tax purposes, according to Italian financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
Mr. Garavoglia, a billionaire who inherited ownership of Campari from his late mother, is accused along with Giovanni Berto, head of Campari’s Italian branch, according to local media reports.
Campari, one of the world’s largest alcoholic beverage producers, is valued at approximately 7 billion Euros on the Milan Stock Exchange.
The company’s roots date back to 1860, when Gaspare Campari’s homemade bitter liqueur became a popular drink among the patrons of a Milan bar.
It was so successful that his family began producing it commercially in 1904, and from the 1990s the company began acquiring other alcohol brands.
