The Guardia di Finanza in Rome has seized more than €25m ($28m) in assets from five former employees of a gaming concessionaire.
The five are accused of using their access to the company’s systems to identify four winning Gratta e Vinci scratch cards before they were sold.
The order was carried out on behalf of the Lazio regional prosecutor’s office at the Court of Auditors and is meant to guarantee compensation for the damage allegedly caused to the Customs and Monopolies Agency.
According to the allegations, the five used their credentials to manipulate the concessionaire’s servers and locate the winning tickets.
Two of them carried prizes of €7m each and the other two €5m each, for €24m in total. Relatives and friends of the five then bought the tickets at retailers across Italy to which the concessionaire had shipped them, and the prizes were collected.
Accounting prosecutors argue that the scheme allowed the five to bypass the random mechanism at the heart of the game, using confidential information to secure prizes that under normal conditions might have gone unclaimed and remained with the state. They have alleged possible pecuniary and non-pecuniary liability against the five.
The investigation led to the seizure of 25 properties, including apartments, villas, garages and cellars, in the provinces of Rome, Viterbo, Treviso, Taranto, Grosseto and Reggio Calabria. Authorities also blocked five cars and motorcycles and several financial assets. A judge will now decide whether to confirm, modify or revoke the seizure.
The accounting case follows a criminal investigation into alleged fraud against the state, according to Italian media reports.
In March, the same regional prosecutors issued the five a formal notice inviting them to respond to the allegations and put the alleged damage to the treasury at €25.067m.
Gratta e Vinci is Italy’s national scratch-card lottery, in which players reveal symbols or numbers by scratching off a ticket to find out if they have won a prize
