On the outskirts of Milan, apparently all it took to open a bank was a car rental business. No branches, no mortgages, no managers in tailored suits. Yet its alleged customers included mafiosi, tax evaders and drug traffickers. On October 21, Italian financial police of the Guardia di Finanza, working with Milan’s anti-mafia prosecutors, carried out 30 arrests, uncovering €110 million in false invoices and €68 million in suspected money laundering involving cryptocurrency. It was a remarkably efficient bank — until the investigators arrived.
Behind the car rental company in Pero, investigators identified figures linked to the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta and the Camorra’s Casalesi clan, working with Chinese and Albanian intermediaries. The service was simple: Turn illicit cash into apparently legitimate business transactions. Shell companies issued invoices for services never performed, businesses made bank transfers and couriers delivered cash in return. Commissions reportedly ranged from 2 to 5 per cent. Competitive rates, provided nobody asked too many questions.
The money travelled through accounts in Luxembourg, Lithuania and Germany before reaching cryptocurrency platforms and digital wallets allegedly controlled by the organisation. Investigators also identified suspected proceeds from online investment fraud. Part of the money reportedly supported imprisoned mafia members. Among those arrested were a financial police inspector accused of corruption and a court employee suspected of unauthorised access to computer systems.
There is an old Chinese expression for transferring value without physically moving money: fei ch’ien, or “flying money”. Informal networks allow cash deposited with one intermediary to be matched by an equivalent payment elsewhere. Originally associated with commerce and remittances, the principle can also serve criminal organisations settling international debts. Chinese underground banking networks have attracted particular attention from European investigators for their role in moving illicit proceeds across borders.
The irony is difficult to miss. Beijing maintains some of the world’s strictest controls on capital leaving China, yet Chinese intermediaries continue to feature in international underground banking investigations. The Milan case does not establish Chinese state involvement but it illustrates how informal financial networks can connect Asian intermediaries with European organised crime. For the mafias, nationality matters considerably less than the ability to deliver cash on time.
Nor is Milan an isolated case. Across Europe, investigators have uncovered underground banking services operating through shops, commercial companies and networks of cash couriers. The attraction is obvious: Criminal proceeds collected in one country can settle obligations in another without the same banknotes crossing a border. Add false invoices, international transfers and cryptocurrency, and the trail becomes considerably harder to reconstruct.
The European Union has spent years tightening its anti-money-laundering legislation**, most recently with a 2024 package that created an Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) in Frankfurt**. Yet criminals can exploit the same financial infrastructure that allows legitimate businesses to operate across borders. A transfer may pass through several jurisdictions before reaching a digital wallet, leaving investigators to piece together information held by different institutions and national authorities. The problem is less a shortage of regulations than the difficulty of enforcing them across an increasingly interconnected financial system.
Cryptocurrency adds another complication. Although European rules now govern crypto-asset service providers under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), tracing transactions does not automatically identify the people controlling the wallets. The blockchain may preserve a record of where the money went. Establishing who sent it, who received it and why remains the harder part.
The October 21 operation mobilised more than 350 financial police officers, with action extending to Spain and Switzerland and seizure orders exceeding €21 million. The investigation dismantled an alleged banking operation concealed behind an ordinary car rental business. Its methods, though, depended on tools available throughout the European economy: Companies, invoices, bank transfers and digital payments.
Brussels continues to refine its anti-money-laundering rules, while Beijing maintains its tight grip on capital movements. Meanwhile, criminal intermediaries have shown how readily money can cross borders that governments struggle to police. Thirty arrests have closed the operation in Pero. The demand for its services has hardly disappeared.
Europe has dismantled the barriers to the free movement of capital. Organised crime is most grateful.
