Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Milan, November 25 2021 - In recent days, the local police seized 15 cars with which the rental service with driver (NCC) was carried out, using false licenses.

The investigation carried out by the "Freccia 1" unit, which deals with taxis and public cars, coordinated by the Milan Prosecutor's Office, has made it possible to trace three managers of three rental companies, who are now accused of forgery for having produced and used documents for the purpose of obtaining the necessary authorizations for the registration of vehicles intended for the transport of third parties.

"The investigation by the local police made it possible to stop a ring of false licenses - declares Marco Granelli, Councilor for Security -. We want to protect those who work correctly, even more so when it comes to a public service such as taxis and rental cars ".

The local police investigation began in January 2021, thanks to a report, and continued until November, for events that occurred starting in 2018 and interrupted at the beginning of the pandemic, when it was no longer economically interesting to carry out services of car rental. This is the modus operandi of the companies investigated: with false authorizations in hand, only apparently issued by some municipalities in the province of Milan (Abbiategrasso, Assago, Bollate, Corsico, Gaggiano, Trezzano sul Naviglio), the managers of the rental companies were able to obtain a regular registration at the Civil Motorization Office.

The vehicles circulated equipped with a shield and identifying insignia, apparently identical to those of regularly authorized vehicles, and also had permits for the reserved lanes in the restricted traffic zones, starting their daily rental business with the economic advantage of having saved on the purchase of the license .

The local police have come across numerous pieces of information, including the passage of cars under urban surveillance cameras and the data released by companies that have electronic applications for vehicle rental; analyzed the documents of the Civil Motorization of Milan and of the Municipalities from which the authorizations seemed to have been issued, detecting, precisely with the latter, the anomalies in the registration numbers and the mismatch with the documents held by the administrations. Several house searches were therefore carried out, including in a shed used as a vehicle shed.