DOZENS of Serie A and B officials and players including Adriano Galliani, Hernan Crespo and Ezequiel Lavezzi have been targeted by an Italian police investigation into alleged tax evasion and false accounting, reports in Italy said Tuesday.

    Sky sport Italia and Gazzetta dello Sport both reported that prosecutors in Napoli had opened the investigation, dubbed “Fuorigioco” (Offside), into tax evasion and false accounting, while Gazzetta claimed “assets valued at around 12 million euros (US$13 million)” had been seized.

    The probe is focusing on suspicions that several players’ agents, many of whom are from Argentina, according to a report on gazzetta.it, colluded with club officials and players from Italy’s top two divisions in a complicated tax-avoidance scheme that benefited all parties and deprived the tax man of millions of euros in revenue.

    A total of 64 people were reportedly targeted Tuesday, including AC Milan vice president Galliani, Napoli president Laurentiis, Lazio president Claudio Lotito, former Juventus president Jean-Claude Blanc as well as players’ agent Alessandro Moggi, the son of former Juventus official Luciano Moggi.

    (SD-Agencies)