Italian police seized documents from a Citigroup unit on Wednesday as prosecutors checked if anyone at the US bank helped Parmalat dupe investors who poured billions of euros into the now insolvent food group.
A source close to Citigroup told Reuters that tax police took the documents from the Milan offices of Eureka, a unit of the biggest US financial services firm.
Citigroup officials in New York and London were not immediately available for comment.
The move by Italian police came as authorities stepped up an investigation into what role, if any, employees of Italian and foreign banks might have played in the fraud scandal which has felled Italy's eighth largest industrial group.
Ten people have been arrested and at least 25 are under investigation in what US regulators have called one of the world's biggest financial scandals.
Citigroup is one of several banks, along with two big auditors and Swedish packaging firm Tetra Pak, that have been caught up in the investigation into suspected fraud, market rigging and false accounting. No charges have been brought.
The US banking group has lodged a legal complaint accusing Parmalat of forging 200 million euros worth of credit notes in 2003, a judicial source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Investigators on Wednesday were trying to establish if anyone from Citigroup had helped companies linked to the food group raise debt backed by inflated invoices, another judicial source said on Wednesday.
The source said the documents related to the probe into some 30 companies linked to Parmalat which might have helped it raise money on the back of fake invoices.
Magistrates in Parma on Wednesday again interrogated Parmalat's former Chief Financial Officer Fausto Tonna about how the dairy company papered over a hole in its accounts that investigators say could prove to be more than 10 billion euros.
Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti said on Wednesday the crisis will cost Italy about 11 billion euros in terms of impact on the economy, or just under one percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
Comments
Comments are closed.