Secrets Revealed: The hidden gold of cross-border smugglers 🔐

Описание: It’s amazing what you find in secret compartments in the cars of smugglers along the Italy-Swiss border. The Mob Reporter here with a look inside Operation Dirty Clothe, a complex Italian police investigation that ended this week with revelations of hidden gold, modern-day smugglers and bank secrecy.
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The city of Como is in Italy’s north. So far north, in fact, it’s on the border with Switzerland. And we all now what Switzerland is famous for, don’t we. And I don’t mean its watches or chocolate. No, it is banking secrecy, often abused by mobsters and money launders.
It was in Coma this week, that the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s financial crimes police force, wrapped up a lengthy investigation into money laundering and money smuggling.
Investigators uncovered a transnational money laundering organization working to launder proceeds of crime and the illegal trade of gold back and forth between criminals in Italy and the black hole of Swiss banks. Smugglers were moving it along the highway linking two of Europe’s great financial centres: Milan in Italy and Lugano in Switzerland. It was moving back and forth in cars that had a few special — and very custom — modifications.
The cars had what are called “traps” — mechanized holes built into a car’s interior that can only be released by pushing a secret combination of dashboard buttons or car pedals. In this Fiat mini van, investigators found that if you insert the van’s key, push the rear window defrost button and then pump the brake pedal six times it released the cover on the dashboard where the airbag is supposed to be. Inside that crevice was a black bag and inside the bag were two packages wrapped in newspapers. That’s where police found the stash of minted gold coins. A lot of them, worth more than half a million euros.
In a second car, police had to strip out the centre console of the vehicle first and then use a pen knife — a small Swiss Army knife, in fact — to press into a hidden slot to unlock a metal panel. Removing that panel revealed stacks of high-denomination bank notes, wrapped in elastics. Some were tucked out of sight even when it’s open.
Police nailed 19 people in Operation Dirty Clothe, including two smugglers caught in their modified cars, and found 36 kilograms of gold, in both gold ingots and minted gold coins. Also seized were cash and five vehicles.
CREDITS:
Supplemental photos courtesy of:
Como by Pxhere - https://pxhere.com/th/photo/571794, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Switzerland by Romy Biner-Hauser - CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Watch photos by Magnus26 - CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
CC BY 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...
and by Torsten Bolten - CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Chocolate photo
By Tammy Green from Chicago, USA - Wall of Bunnies, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
The Swiss federal palace:
By http://www.parlament.ch, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Lake Lucerne:
By Fabrice Blanc - View from Pilatus.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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