The court of Milan had the assets of Italy’s leading bank UniCredit worth ?245m arrested; this was done within the framework of an investigation that aims to see if the bank avoided paying taxes in 2007-2008. The Italian police suspect that the fraudulent scheme was suggested to UniCredit by the British Barclays, RBC daily reports.

Judge Luigi Varanelli told The Wall Street Journal that the assets arrested equal to the profits made by the bank in 2007-2008 and not paid to the state budget. The police believe that UniCredit had its tax declarations deliberately altered for the purposes of tax evasion.