An Italian gambling magnate known as “the king of slots” was arrested on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten in connection with an investigation into an offshore tax evasion scheme.
An Italian law enforcement agency known as the Financial Guard said Francesco Corallo has been charged with conspiracy to commit crimes including tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement.
Five others were arrested with him, including Amedeo Laboccetta, a former member of the Italian parliament.
The investigation is centered on the activities of a company controlled by Corallo, Atlantis-Bplus, recently rebranded as Starnet, an operator of video gambling machines and online gambling sites that was licensed in Italy in 2004 and quickly acquired a dominant position in the country’s machine gaming market, at one point managing over 30 percent of all active terminals, which are found in places such as betting shops and bars.
According to investigators, the rapid rise of Corallo’s business was propelled by large-scale tax evasion through a complex corporate structure threading through the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and several offshore jurisdictions.
Details quoted in the Financial Guard’s indictment reveal that between 2004 and 2014 the group’s associates paid more than €250 million into British and Dutch bank accounts before transferring the funds to Caribbean companies linked to Corallo. Prosecutors allege that part of that money was later used to finance various property investments.
Laboccetta, who served in the lower house of Italy’s parliament as a member of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right People of Freedom Party, allegedly used his influence to protect Corallo when the latter was arrested on a separate corruption charge in 2012.
Also under investigation are Sergio and Giancarlo Tulliani, father-in-law and brother-in-law of former lower house President Gianfranco Fini.
Born in the Sicilian city of Catania, Corallo moved to Sint-Maarten in what was then the Netherlands Antilles at the age of 23. He gained control of three local casinos there, laying the foundations of his empire
His father, who was linked by investigators to Italy’s Cosa Nostra, had also found refuge on Sint Maarten in the 1980s, where he invested in real estate, hotels and casinos. He was sentenced in 1993 to seven years in jail for corruption related to an attempted takeover on behalf of organized crime backers of a casino in the Italian enclave of Campione.
