The Guardia di Finanza (Finance Police) of Italy used Google Earth, amongst other tools, to collect evidence with regards to a tax evasion totaling 7 million euros.
The tax evasion was carried out by a businessman of Cortina d'Ampezzo - and suspicions were raised after the "finanzieri" found out that in 2002 he sold a villa in Sardinia worth 280 000 Euros. A detail regarding the villa was that it contained a swimming pool with a phallic shape.
That unmistakable clue led the officers to search for the villa using satellite imagery on Google Earth, in order to collect further evidence. Discovering the exact position, in Porto Rotondo, they then realised that the actual value of the villa should be much higher as the value of nearby property is very high.
That then led to checks into all the dealings of this business man, including bank account checks, which revealed a whole series of "ommissions" totalling to a tax evasion of 7 million euros.
PS: We should admit that here at ITALY Magazine curiosity won and we had a brief look at the many and varied swimming pools of Porto Rotondo on Google Earth. While we are not sure we discovered the aforementioned one we did realise that the shapes of the luxury swimming pools of Porto Rotondo are anything but dull and if you are looking for inspiration for your own swimming pool looking at the Porto Rotondo swimming pools through Google Earth is a good place to start as any!
UPDATE: The eagle-eyed readers of the Rat and Mouse think they have located the smoking gun (i.e. the phallic-shaped swimming pool) and have provided imagery to back their claim. Although we admit that this is definitely reminiscent of something we are not quite sure if this is the one. Below the image for you to judge.
