Milano. The Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating Google Payments and Google Ireland Limited. The anti-money laundering legislation of the two Google companies is a big and worrying one, and Trans-Port, a Milanese company that came up accidentally during an investigation into tax evasion and interpersonal corruption, was the manager and ten managers of the Italian aerospace defense giant Leonardo (injured party official).

Allegedly, since 2017, top management of Trans-Party would have used Google Payments to pay bribes: in fact, the platform would allow transfers in Italy without mentioning the sender’s name. One way to “protect” someone’s name is to raise the principle of “know your customer” in the face of anti-money laundering checks imposed by banks, explained Prosecutor Francesco Greco in a recent interview.

The investigation was initiated by prosecutor Gaitano Rutta. In the following months, PG della Finanza, along with colleagues in the financial and financial police unit, seized the entire “accounting” of bribes paid to Leonardo’s unfaithful managers at the company’s headquarters in exchange for information about orders. One of them even took a fixed monthly fee, and the annual amount calculated based on what he did (10, 20, 30 thousand euros)Close the year prior to the trans-party. In some cases, various types of gifts were added to the money to be spent on fuel vouchers or computers, telephones, TVs and appliance stores. Yesterday, financiers went to Leonardo’s offices in Rome and Pomigliano de Arco (Naples) to receive emails and documentation. Leonardo did not investigate, but cooperatedOr with investigators.

Trans-Part, which ended up at the center of the investigation, is a supplier of former finmechanics and intermediaries in the supply of materials and equipment. The company used a bribe to finance (legal) contracts and divert a portion of the proceeds to US subsidiaries from slash funds created by its employees. It would have transferred between $ 4.5 million between 2012 and 2018 to three offshore companies with offices in Panama, the United Kingdom and Ireland, in the absence of justifications.

The company used two recyclers to return the money to Italy and pay Leonardo’s officials. According to the indictment, they would have used the Google Pay payment platform. Google would allow Ireland and Google Payments to “transfer money from tax evasion”, preventing them from “identifying the criminal origin” making it impossible to find out who sent the transfer. For this reason, both Google companies are currently investigating the transaction under Rule 231 of the Administrative Liability Act..