Italy busts mafia 'secret bank' that used crypto, seizes €21M

Italian police have arrested 30 people accused of running an underground bank for organised crime out of a car-rental business near Milan, seizing €21 million (about $23.6 million) in assets including cryptocurrency, Decrypt reported, citing Italian news agency ANSA and Bloomberg. Here are the key points of the case.

The raid and the arrests

The operation was carried out by the Guardia di Finanza, Italy's financial police, on the orders of Milan's anti-mafia prosecutors. Sixteen suspects were taken into custody and 14 placed under house arrest, including two people arrested in Spain and one in Switzerland. Seized assets included cash, bank balances, crypto, boats, jewellery and luxury watches.

Who allegedly ran the "bank"

According to investigators, the business in Pero, on the outskirts of Milan, was run by three Italians: two long-time contacts of 'Ndrangheta clans from Crotone, both previously convicted in mafia cases, and a member of the Camorra's Casalesi clan. Suspects are also linked to organised crime groups from Foggia. Chinese and Albanian accomplices helped operate the network, prosecutors said.

How the money moved

• Shell companies issued more than €110 million in invoices for services never provided, helping businesses cut their tax bills.
• Those firms paid by bank transfer and got the money back in cash, minus a commission.
• About €68 million was moved abroad. Funds were sent to banks in Luxembourg, Lithuania and Germany and then routed through crypto exchanges into wallets controlled by the network, Bloomberg reported.
• Drug traffickers who handed over cash received crypto or international bank transfers in return, and the network also handled money taken from victims of online crypto investment scams — a pattern our guide on how to spot crypto scams helps readers recognise.

Insiders caught up in the case

A Guardia di Finanza inspector was placed under house arrest on corruption charges, Calabrian outlet LaC News24 reported. Investigators also accuse a Milan court employee of leaking information about ongoing probes, and a lawyer and a former financial police officer are among those involved. The case is laid out in a court order running to more than 500 pages; the Guardia di Finanza's technology fraud unit supported the investigation.

Why crypto is now routine in organised-crime cases

Italy's Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate warned back in 2021 that "all criminal organizations, including those of the Mafia type," were interested in such instruments, and described the 'Ndrangheta as increasingly attuned to cryptocurrency and the deep web. Seizing crypto is now a standard part of large investigations elsewhere too: this week Chinese prosecutors moved to confiscate 61,800 BTC tied to a $5.7 billion fraud. Exchanges' identity checks, a core rule under the EU's MiCA framework, are part of how such flows get traced.