Florence cathedral managers fall prey to 1.5-million-euro email fraud

ROME, ‌Dec 11 (Reuters) - Italian police said on Thursday they had ‍broken ‌up an international criminal organisation that had swindled some ⁠30 million euros ($35.2 million) ‌from victims including the cultural body that manages Florence's artistic monuments.

Prosecutors in the northern city of Brescia issued warrants for ⁠the arrest of 10 people including Italian, Nigerian, Albanian and Chinese nationals ​accused of money laundering and issuing false ‌invoices.

They launched the investigation ⁠after the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, a non-profit organisation that manages Florence cathedral and other city ​landmarks, reported that it had been the victim of an email scam. 

Intercepting email correspondence, criminals posed as the company that carried out restoration and conservation work ​for ‍the Opera and received ​nearly 1.8 million euros from it, a police statement said.

Authorities managed to retrieve about 300,000 euros, leaving the organisation short of almost 1.5 million euros.

Their broader investigation uncovered a growing ring of loan-sharking and money laundering by ⁠Chinese criminal organisations in Italy, said Brescia's Chief Prosecutor Francesco Prete.

"Chinese money laundering ​is taking on worrying dimensions because we can't understand what the source of the cash supply is," he said at a news conference.

None of ‌the people arrested or being sought by police were named.

($1 = 0.8511 euros)

(Reporting By Gavin Jones, editing by Alvise Armellini)