Alberto Aleotti
A series of searches and seizures is underway in various offices of the Menarini pharmaceutical company. The activity is conducted by the carabinieri del nas, coordinated by the Florence prosecutor's office and would fall within the investigations ordered as part of an investigation in which tax evasion is hypothesized and a hypothesis of crime connected to the illicit importation of active ingredients whose purchase would have resulted in a higher price than the one actually paid, in order to be able to set aside funds to be taken abroad. The company allegedly hid over one billion euros from the Italian tax authorities, money that would have ended up abroad and probably returned in whole or in part with the tax shield. But among the charges there would also be criminal association, tax fraud and receiving stolen goods. There are 14 suspects. For the legal representatives of Menarini, but also of four other group companies, a ban on relations with the public administration has been requested.
For the same investigation, searches were also carried out in May 2009. At the time there were nine suspects. Among them the top management of Menarini: Alberto Aleotti and his children Lucia and Alberto Giovanni.
The company's lawyer, Roberto Cordeiro Guerra, explains that "all the active ingredient purchase operations were carried out at market values, as already found in previous checks and therefore did not have any negative effect on the correct determination of company profits. The cost of purchasing these active ingredients, in addition to being entirely reasonable for tax purposes, in no way influences the procedure for determining the price of sale to the public of medicines.This price is, in fact, fixed by the national authorities
