Italian prosecutors are increasingly treating parts of the logistics labour model as a systemic risk rather than a one-off compliance failure. The latest example is a €27.3m preventive seizure ordered by the Milan court against CEVA Logistics Italia and CEVA Ground Logistics Italy, in a probe that alleges false invoicing and “simulated” subcontracting were used to disguise what investigators describe as unlawful labour supply.
The measure was ordered on 27 February 2026 and executed between 2 and 3 March by the Guardia di Finanza’s economic-financial police unit in Milan. Prosecutors are investigating suspected fraudulent tax declarations through invoices for non-existent transactions, linked to warehouse-handling and operational contracts that, according to investigators, “screened” the real provision of labour.
What makes the CEVA case important is the bigger pattern Milan has been building for years: prosecutors and financial police repeatedly allege that complex subcontracting structures in warehouses can function as “labour reservoirs”—networks of cooperatives and contractors that formally employ workers but, investigators claim, lack the autonomy, organisation and business risk that would normally define a genuine subcontractor.
In these cases, the alleged gain is not only cheaper labour. Prosecutors typically argue that the structure enables tax advantages, such as deducting costs and reclaiming VAT, while shifting or evading obligations in areas like VAT, social security and employment rules.
Reuters reports that, in the CEVA probe, investigators are examining managers at both companies alongside the corporate entities, and that the period under scrutiny is 2020–2024.
A familiar enforcement playbook
The CEVA seizure follows the same enforcement logic seen in other high-profile Italian probes. Over the past two years, the sector has seen a series of large measures linked to alleged “non-genuine” subcontracting and invoicing:
- Kuehne+Nagel (April 2025): Milan financial police executed seizure orders totalling over €30m, including funds seized from a customer, in a case again linked to alleged fictitious labour-supply contracts and false invoices.
- GXO (July 2024): prosecutors opened an investigation into GXO’s Italian operations in Lodi, with a reported €83.9m seizure, amid allegations tied to the “labour reservoir” model. A later Trans.info overview of the crackdown lists GXO as one of the earlier headline cases that preceded the 2025 actions against other large operators.
- Rhenus (July 2025): a reported €43m seizure accompanied allegations of multi-tier “filter” companies issuing invoices for non-existent services; IKEA entities were mentioned as customers in reporting, while authorities stressed they were not under investigation.
- Turin (September 2025): a separate court ordered €26.5m in confiscations and judicial supervision over a “filter” company, in a case described as involving reservoir firms, filter firms and client beneficiaries.
Taken together, these files show what Milan prosecutors appear to be signalling: the liability does not stop at the “last cooperative in the chain”. Investigations increasingly examine the client/prime contractor level, the contractual structure, and, crucially, the degree of operational control exercised over the workforce.
The current probe also lands on a company that has already been through Milan’s system once. CEVA’s Italian operations were placed under judicial administration in 2019 in a separate case and later released; CEVA has previously said the court ended the measure early in 2020 after compliance and supply-chain changes. That background strengthens the sense that prosecutors view this as an enduring structural issue in logistics, rather than a compliance “clean-up” that permanently solved the problem.
The political fault line: is the framework too easy to game?
With cases piling up, the debate has shifted from enforcement to legislation. After the Rhenus case, Democratic Party politicians Maria Cecilia Guerra and Arturo Scotto argued that the current rules allow illegal employment-agency activity to be disguised as subcontracting, pointing to Article 29(1) of Legislative Decree 276/2003. They said they plan to revive parliamentary efforts to tighten the law and more clearly separate genuine business activity from labour intermediation.
The core legal argument across these investigations is the same: a genuine “appalto” (a real subcontracted service, not a disguised way of “renting” workers) should involve a contractor that organises resources, manages staff autonomously and bears business risk. In practice, labour-law specialists note that logistics outsourcing can blur that line, especially in large hubs where workflows, targets and supervision may be set by the principal.
Italy has already moved to tighten parts of the framework (including changes highlighted in employer and legal briefings on Decree-Law 19/2024), but critics argue the key question is whether enforcement tools and liability tweaks are enough without a sharper “bright line” definition.
