A Dundee man is facing allegations of involvement in a £344 million Italian money laundering scheme.
Andrew Neave finds himself implicated in a complicated network of multimillion-pound transactions that has been branded ”one of the most colossal in the history of Italy” by an investigating magistrate.
Prosecutors also said the alleged fraud used ”Mafia methods”.
Part of the scheme is said to have involved commodity brokerage and telecoms companies run by Neave, who became a fixture in the London financial scene, and others.
More than 50 people from Italy, Britain, the former Soviet states and the USA have been involved.
It is claimed the companies engaged in carousel VAT fraud in Italy by acting as fictitious clients so that money generated by the fraud was laundered through the companies’ accounts.
Four British men insist they dealt ”impeccably” with Italian companies but that authorities looking into alleged fraud discovered their names on documents and so sought their arrest.
The Italian prosecutors viewed surveillance of a meeting at a Nobu Japanese restaurant in London.
It is alleged that those at the meeting included at least one man with a series of international fraud convictions.
Neave (45), who gave his address in court as Old Craigie Road, Dundee, was extradited after being arrested by the Serious and Organised Crime Agency.
It was expected that some of the British men on the arrest warrant would be held at the notorious Rebibbia prison near Rome.
SOCA said it had been granted restraint orders against four houses worth a total of £25 million as part of its probe.
Westminster Magistrates Court heard that Neave, along with Colin Dines, Andrew Dines and Paul O’Connor, were accused of being part of a ”transnational criminal organisation consisting of more than 10 people” and ”complicit in money laundering”.
The offences detailed in the international arrest warrants arose out of an investigation by Judge Aldo Morgigni into the financial activities of two Italian telecom companies.
The four men on the British arrest warrant had been bailed until their extradition.