Italy seizes $49 million from DHL unit in labour supply probe
MILAN, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Italian police have seized 46.8 million euros ($49.1 million) from a local unit of logistics giant Deutsche Post DHL (DHLn.DE), opens new tab as part of the latest investigation into alleged tax fraud linked to illicit labour supply, prosecutors' documents showed.
In a 50-page decree reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday, Milan prosecutors accused DHL Express Italy srl of circumventing labour and tax laws through false invoices, relying on cooperatives or limited liability companies that supplied workers while omitting tax and social security payments.
The charges cover the period from 2019 to 2023.
Deutsche Post DHL confirmed that its Italian subsidiary was subject "to checks by the authorities".
"As this is part of an ongoing investigation, we cannot provide further details," a DHL spokesperson said, adding that the company is cooperating fully with the authorities and that its service to customers is not affected.
This is the second time that Milan prosecutors have issued such an order against a local unit of the German group, having seized more than 20 million euros from DHL Supply Chain in an investigation on the same charges in 2021.
The Italian authorities have targeted more than a dozen delivery and logistics groups over their labour practices in recent years. They have made seizure orders with a value of 634 million euros since 2021, including this latest move, documents from the prosecutors show.
In the latest decree, prosecutors said that DHL Express Italy, via intermediaries acting as filters, used "bogus procurement contracts for the provision of services" with these cooperatives or companies that were a front for cheap labour, and made false tax declarations.
They added that this business model "facilitates the exploitation of workers and results in unfair competition", and it has been common malpractice in Italy for years, if not decades.
Similar investigations into irregular hiring schemes, the last one in January into FedEx (FDX.N), opens new tab, have targeted other large businesses including Amazon and GLS, U.S. logistic giant GXO Logistics (GXO.N), opens new tab, German logistics firm DB Schenker and Italian supermarket chain Esselunga, Milan prosecutors said.
($1 = 0.9527 euros)
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If people who support Brexit or worry about immigration are extremists, you're going to get pretty high figures So, for example, Bolton council's useful 'Prevent' handbook singles out 'right-wing extremists' as being at the forefront of terror attacks in the UK, and these extremists include people who are cultural nationalists: 'Cultural nationalism is ideology characterised by anti-immigration, anti-Islam, anti-Muslim, anti-establishment narratives, often emphasising British/English 'victimhood' and identity under attack from a perceived 'other'.' Islamic terrorism is also mentioned – but, again, heavily caveated. Then there's Prevent's own list of people who were picked up under its guidelines: 45 per cent were related to extreme right-wing radicalisation (230); 23 per cent were linked to Islamist radicalisation (118); the rest were related to other radicalisation concerns, including incels and those at risk of carrying out school shootings. But then I suppose if people who proclaim their support for Brexit or worry a bit about immigration are extremists, you are going to get pretty high arrest figures. If you add into the mix the fact that simply to associate Islam with terrorism you are guilty of Islamophobia, then you can see why we're in the state we're in. Incidentally, when she was Prime Minister, Theresa May, to her credit, drafted a new introduction to the Prevent guidelines which made it clear that the biggest threat to British security was al Qaeda, not Tommy Robinson et al. But that message does not seem to have sunk in with those in Prevent. It seems almost pointless to run through the facts. The truth is that almost every fatal terrorist attack in Britain since 2001 has been perpetrated by Islamists. All bar three. Have these people got a twisted or perverted understanding of Islam, as Prevent insists? I haven't a clue. I am no Quranic expert. I'm just, y'know, taking their word for it. Further, 80 per cent of the Counter Terrorism Policing network's investigations are related to Islamism (2023). Some 75 per cent of MI5's surveillance cases are Islamists. There are around 40,000 potential jihadis being monitored by our security services. There is not the remotest doubt as to the provenance of the gravest terror threats to our country. It's not the shaven-headed nutters with swastika armbands. It is Islamists. Nigel Farage's answer is to sack everyone working in Prevent. That seems a perfectly reasonable suggestion. But I may have a better one. Scrap Prevent entirely and initiate a new network of monitoring and reporting which focuses solely on Islamic terrorism. Junk the sixth-form philosophising over what is meant by the term 'extremist' and locate the problem precisely where it is: somewhere within our Muslim communities, even if we accept that our Muslim communities may not want them there. In short, get real and tell the truth. 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