Entrepreneurs from Treviso, Italy, Christian Visentin and Emanuele Giullini were arrested in Dubai for the crypto fraud. Now, the documents have been transferred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Treviso, Italy, which is handling the case after claiming territorial jurisdiction.
Summary
Dubai: crypto fraud arrests transferred to Treviso prosecutor’s office
Christian Visentin and Emanuele Giullini have been charged in Italy for raising €260 million using NFT companies. The two are under investigation after an initial investigation by the Pordenone prosecutor’s office unveiled details related to Bitcoin scams through New Financial Technology.
The company promised individual users 10% interest per month for each cryptocurrency investment. As anticipated, at a later stage the acts were passed to the Treviso Prosecutor’s Office.
According to initial reconstructions, the action would have been carried out by Emirati law enforcement. An operation that in this case is apparently not related to the investigations of the Italian judiciary, but to operations initiated directly by the justice of the Arab country.
All of this because of the activities carried out by Visentin and Giullini in the foreign country, which, according to reports in Ansa, were of a similar nature to those found in Italy.
The reasons that prompted the Emirates to seek a restraining order against the two entrepreneurs would be two counts. The first, involves crimes “against trust” and the second “treason.”
In Italian judicial terms, this would be aggravated fraud. Visentin is being defended by lawyer Paolo Gianatti, of Albenga (Savona), while Giulini is being assisted by Nicola Bonino, of Turin, both of whom are engaged in figuring out the magistrates’ charges.
Full details of arrest in Dubai for crypto fraud
Yesterday afternoon, 13 February, there was the validation of the arrest, which in that country also counts as a preliminary hearing. The judge then has the power to remand the two suspects, who would face up to ten years in prison if convicted at trial.
In addition to NFT scams, defrauded investors are pursuing a series of claims in various Italian prosecutors’ offices against about 70 agents, who are accused of abusive practice of financial promotion and aggravated fraud.
In addition to Italy, prosecutors’ offices across Europe are also moving to trace the money misappropriated from investors amid investigations by the Italian judiciary and Consob.
However, there is no word on Rizzato, the third partner in the Treviso-based company New Financial Technology. The Ponzi scheme allegedly involved an estimated 6,000 investors, almost all from the Veneto and Friuli regions, for a sum, as anticipated, of around 260 million euros.
It all stems from last May, when the company stopped interest payments and then stopped all withdrawals as well. To put it another way, investors had been left holding the bag.
According to leaked reports, Visentin and Giullini were arrested in a joint operation triggered not by requests from Italy but came directly from the Emirates. The two reportedly then engaged in activities in the Emirates of a similar nature to those carried out in Italy.
In any case, there were already rumors last December that men of the underworld, linked to Camorra clans from Campania, had reached Visentin in Dubai, convincing him, by hook or crook, to return to them what they had invested.
Previous searches in Treviso and Pordenone on the NFT affair in Silea
As early as last August, law enforcement officers had carried out house searches in the provinces of Pordenone and Treviso and other locations around the country, noting the probable disappearance of most of the documents and other useful information that had already taken place.
Chief Prosecutor Raffaele Tito had stated the following on the matter:
“It seems that, once again, too many people have not wanted to listen to the cautionary warnings that are constantly issued by the responsible state bodies and, enticed by improbable earnings, have imprudently invested their savings, often earned with great sacrifice.”
The investigation was opened following an in-depth report by the Guardia di Finanza. Pordenone Prosecutor’s Office is in close investigative contact with the Treviso Prosecutor’s Office. In fact a complaint was then also imminent to be filed with the Milan Prosecutor’s Office.