According to the Turin daily La Stampa, the Bank of Italy was alerted by the Central Bank of Cyprus to allegations that two of Gourevitch's companies, Wolstin Ltd and Crown Era Investments Ltd, had been "used to launder money derived from carousel frauds and the smuggling of tobacco and drugs, perpetrated presumably in Italy and the United Kingdom".

Police reportedly succeeded in penetrating the activities of Gourevitch and his associates after intercepting a package posted by him at Milan airport and addressed to a company in Rome. The package contained 10 English mobile phone SIM cards that the alleged conspirators believed could not be intercepted by Italian police, according to a report published Friday by the weekly magazine Panorama. The investigators noted the numbers of the cards, six for Vodafone and four for Orange, and then resealed the envelope and sent them on their way.

Perhaps the most colourful of Gourevitch's alleged associates, among the 55 others for whom Judge Morgigni issued arrest warrants two weeks ago, is Gennaro Mokbel, the son of an Egyptian military officer and Italian mother. Mokbel is alleged to have used contacts in the Calabrian mafia, known as the 'ndrangheta, to get a friend fraudulently elected to the Senate.

With alleged connections to right-wing extremists, including two terrorists convicted for the 1980 bombing of a Bologna railway station, and allegedly protected by corrupt officers in the finance police, Mokbel reportedly invested some of his illegal profits in African diamonds and works of art by major modern Italian artists. His collection reportedly included photographs and memorabilia of wartime leaders Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler.

Italian newspapers allege the group may have enjoyed friendly relations with secret service officers, as well as with police and politicians. A British suspect, Paul Anthony O'Connor, was frequently "accompanied by a former agent of Britain's MI6 (foreign intelligence agency)", according to Panorama.