ADVERTISEMENTAn Italian heiress has been accused of hiding more than a thousand real estate properties with a combined worth of more than two billion euros from Italian tax authorities.
According to reports in the Italian media, Angiola Armellini was an official resident of Monaco between 1999 and 2010. However, during that time she very rarely left Rome, where the great majority of her properties, including three luxurious hotels, happen to be located.
Italian daily Corriere della Sera claims socialite Armellini has used several countries, including Monaco, Luxembourg, Switzerland, New Zealand, Jersey and the Bahamas, to manage her assets far from the Italian tax authorities’ eyes.
Public Prosecutors in Rome have charged Armellini, designated “de facto property manager”, and eleven of her associates with tax avoidance.
Italian justice officials are demanding that she pays 17 million euros in real estate and property back taxes.
In 1996, the heir and her then-husband Alessandro Mei was involved in a fraudulent bankruptcy worth some 200 billion Italian lire, approximately 100 million euros.
Angiola Armellini is the daughter of construction tycoon Renato Armellini, who died in 1993 and was famous for having been kidnapped by the Calabrese mafia. He made his fortune in the 1970s Italian economic boom by building numerous flats in and around Rome.
(with AFP)