The Aversa Nord logistics hub, in the industrial area of the province of Caserta (Italy), is an important node for the distribution of food products and fast-moving consumer goods in central and southern Italy. Every day, hundreds of workers handle goods on behalf of one of the leading operators in large-scale retail. In the case under investigation, on paper those workers were employed by cooperatives that changed name at regular intervals. In practice, however, their workplace, duties, shifts and operational reporting lines were those of employees. This is the hypothesis behind the investigation that led, in April 2026, to the preventive seizure of assets worth more than €30m, as part of criminal proceedings coordinated by the Procura della Repubblica di Napoli Nord (Public Prosecutor’s Office of Naples North) and delegated to the Nucleo di polizia economico-finanziaria della Guardia di finanza di Napoli (Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza in Naples).
The case follows others that have been launched or concluded across Italy in the logistics sector. Prosecutors have placed 29 individuals and legal entities under investigation for issuing and using invoices for non-existent transactions. The inquiries, conducted with the support of the Settore Contrasto Illeciti dell’Agenzia delle Entrate (Illegal Practices Prevention Unit of the Italian Revenue Agency) and covering the tax years from 2019 to 2025, uncovered what investigators say was a carefully constructed tax fraud in the large-scale retail segment: invoices totalling more than €166m, described by investigators as non-existent both legally and subjectively.
The mechanism operated on several levels. At the top of the chain was the contracting company, the substantial beneficiary of the entire system, which manages a distribution centre at Aversa Nord. For logistics and goods-handling services carried out at its own facility, this company, whose name investigators have not disclosed, formally used two consortia. These, in turn, relied on 18 cooperative companies, set up and used as labour pools. The cooperatives formally hired the workers, who nevertheless carried out their activities directly on the contracting company’s premises, under its direction and control. What appeared to be a complex system of service contracts was, according to the reconstruction by the Procura (Public Prosecutor’s Office), an illegal supply of labour, structured to evade both employment rules and tax obligations.
The consortia at the centre of the formal chain had no real operational capacity: few capital goods, limited vehicle fleets and activities almost exclusively directed towards the contracting company from the time they were established. The cooperatives had a similar profile: registered offices that were effectively non-existent or unsuitable, no utilities or independent organisational structure, nominee directors, and the same professionals handling tax and corporate compliance for several cooperatives. In many cases, the companies were not present at the addresses they had declared.
The element that investigators say most directly reveals the true nature of the relationship is the management of the workers. The contracting company directly organised shifts, working hours and duties through advanced IT systems capable of issuing instructions to workers and monitoring operations in real time. In effect, it was exercising the typical powers of an employer. According to the Procura (Public Prosecutor’s Office), the contracts were simulated: they were used to conceal an unlawful labour supply arrangement, with invoices classified as non-existent legally, because they related to fictitious contracts, and subjectively, because they were issued by parties other than the actual suppliers of the labour.
The economic advantage of the operation was built on a specific tax lever. From the time they were established, the cooperatives allegedly systematically failed to pay VAT. The sums collected as tax were instead used almost entirely to pay wages and other personnel costs. In this way, VAT became a tool to fund labour costs, reducing the prices charged to the consortia and the contracting company below any level that a compliant operator could achieve. Meanwhile, the contracting company deducted the VAT shown on the invoices received from the consortia, obtaining an undue tax saving. The tax authorities collected nothing from either side.
The result was a systematic competitive advantage: the ability to manage hundreds of workers without hiring them directly, avoiding the costs and constraints of employment contracts, with a level of organisational flexibility that no legal model could have offered at the same prices. Compared with logistics operators that comply with tax and contractual rules, the system produced structural dumping on labour costs.
Completing the picture, investigators found the use of accounting devices within the cooperatives designed to conceal losses and present a false economic position: fictitious revenues entered in the accounts and debts to the Treasury understated. The management of all the companies involved appeared to be centralised and attributable to a single coordinating structure, with stable support from the same professionals for accounting and tax compliance. When a cooperative accumulated tax debts that could no longer be managed, it was replaced by a new one, to which the workers were transferred en bloc. Operational continuity was maintained; legal and contribution continuity was not.
For workers, this meant permanent insecurity. Formally employed by entities with no real business autonomy, exposed to the risk of gaps in social security contributions and difficulties in enforcing rights to pay and severance, they changed employer on paper without anything changing in the substance of their daily relationship with the contracting company. The rotation of cooperatives, their “expendability”, according to the reconstruction by investigators, was an integral part of the system, not a side-effect.
One significant element emerged during the investigation: the contracting company chose to regularise its position for the tax years from 2019 to 2024, filing supplementary tax returns and paying taxes totalling €14,413,269.45, in addition to interest and penalties of €6,229,864.91. This voluntary disclosure led to a reduction in the preventive seizure order executed against the other parties involved, which fell to €14,564,502.67. However, the system challenged by investigators remains intact in its entirety, and the proceedings are still at the preliminary investigation stage. The liability of the suspects can be definitively established only by a final conviction.
