Bank account seized in an Italian criminal case: what to do and how to get it released

The Italian Code of Criminal Procedure provides for two forms of preventive seizure (art. 321 c.p.p.). The first, known as preventive in the strict sense, applies to property connected with the offence when leaving it free could aggravate or prolong its consequences or facilitate further offences – for example an account used to move the money of a fraud. The second, the most common for bank accounts, applies to property that may be confiscated and serves to anticipate the outcome of a future conviction.

During the investigation it is ordered by the preliminary investigation judge (giudice per le indagini preliminari) in a reasoned decree. In urgent cases the prosecutor may order it directly, but must ask the judge to validate it within forty-eight hours; if these time limits are missed, or the judge does not validate it within ten days of the request, the seizure lapses (art. 321(3-bis) and (3-ter) c.p.p.).

In practice the bank freezes the funds up to the amount stated in the decree. Account holders often find out from a rejected payment or a message from their branch, before they have seen the order itself: this is why the law also runs the time limit for review from the day the person learned of the seizure.

Direct confiscation targets the proceeds or the price of the offence. Value confiscation (confisca per equivalente), allowed only where the law provides for it, targets other assets of the offender of corresponding value, when direct confiscation is not possible. For tax offences it is provided for by art. 12-bis of Legislative Decree 74/2000, which from 1 January 2027 becomes art. 87 of the consolidated act on tax penalties (Legislative Decree 173/2024).

For years, money was the exception: being fungible, sums found in the offender’s account were always treated as subject to direct confiscation, even when they had a lawful origin. The Joint Divisions of the Court of Cassation (Sezioni Unite) changed course: confiscation of money is direct only if it is proved that those very sums derive from the offence; otherwise it is value confiscation. The same applies to the seizure that prepares it, with reasoning proportionate to the stage of the proceedings (Court of Cassation, Joint Criminal Divisions, 26 September 2024, filed 8 April 2025, no. 13783, Massini).

The difference has practical consequences. If the seizure is value-based, its limits apply: a statutory provision must allow it, the amount frozen cannot exceed the alleged proceeds and, where there are several suspects, each answers only for what they actually obtained, with no joint liability (same judgment). A salary credited after the events, or the price of a property inherited and sold, is not as a rule the proceeds of the offence.

A seizure brings forward a confiscation that will come, if at all, only with a conviction. This is why the Joint Divisions held that a seizure aimed at confiscation must also give reasons, however concise, for the periculum in mora: why, while the trial runs its course, the asset could be dispersed, transformed or sold (Court of Cassation, Joint Criminal Divisions, 24 June 2021, no. 36959, Ellade, as recalled by Court of Cassation, Criminal Section III, 17 March 2026, no. 15479).

The Court has since ruled out automatic reasoning, including for the mandatory confiscation that applies to tax offences. In its 2026 judgment it set aside a review court’s order that had justified the freeze solely by the “volatility and fungibility” of money and the seriousness of the alleged conduct, without examining how the suspects had behaved after the events or their financial position, which the defence had documented (Court of Cassation, Criminal Section III, no. 15479/2026).

Tax offences have an additional rule. If the tax debt is being paid in instalments, including after a settlement with the tax authority (accertamento con adesione) or a court conciliation, and the payments are up to date, the seizure aimed at confiscation is not ordered, unless there is a concrete risk that the assets securing the debt will be dispersed (art. 12-bis(2), Legislative Decree 74/2000).

Request for review

The judge’s decree can be challenged by a request for review (riesame), on the merits as well as on the law (art. 322 c.p.p.). It may be filed by the suspect and their lawyer, by the person from whom the property was seized and by whoever would be entitled to have it returned. The request must be lodged within ten days of the seizure being carried out or of the person learning of it; the decision lies with the court of the provincial capital where the issuing office sits – for decrees issued in Milan, the Tribunale di Milano – within ten days of receiving the file (art. 324 c.p.p.).

Grounds can be set out in the request and supplemented at the hearing. The court may lift the seizure in part, and in the meantime the request does not suspend the freeze (arts. 322(2) and 324(7) c.p.p.).

Revocation and appeal

If the conditions for the seizure cease to exist, even because of later events – a payment to the tax authority, an instalment plan, documents proving the lawful origin of the funds – its revocation can be requested at any time (art. 321(3) c.p.p.). A refusal can be appealed to the court (art. 322-bis c.p.p.).

Appeal to the Court of Cassation

Orders on review and appeal can be challenged before the Court of Cassation only for breach of law. Within the same ten days, the judge’s decree may also be challenged directly before the Court of Cassation, but the request for review then becomes inadmissible (art. 325 c.p.p.): a choice to make carefully, since it gives up the review on the merits.

1. Obtain the decree and the record of execution, and note the date on which the bank froze the account or on which you learned of it: the time limit runs from there.
2. Read the decree with your lawyer: which offence, which amount, whether the seizure is direct or value-based, how the risk is reasoned.
3. Trace the origin of the funds with bank statements for recent years and documents for every significant credit: salary, dividends, sales, inheritances, loans.
4. Document your financial position and conduct since the events: real estate, no suspicious transfers, payments already made or instalment plans with the tax authority.
5. Quantify the needs of the business or the family, if the freeze blocks essential payments.
6. Choose the route: review, direct appeal to the Court of Cassation or request for revocation, weighing how the arguments will affect the rest of the defence.

In our criminal defence work we treat the seizure as part of the overall strategy: what is argued at the review hearing stays on the file.

When a value-based seizure targets a company held liable under Legislative Decree 231/2001 (the Italian regime of corporate liability for offences), the law takes the continuity of the business into account. If it covers businesses, shareholdings or cash, the judicial administrator allows their use by the company’s bodies solely to ensure the continuity and development of the business, supervising and reporting to the court (art. 53(1-bis), Legislative Decree 231/2001).

A spouse or relative who holds the account jointly and is not under investigation may request review as a person from whom the funds were seized or who is entitled to their return (art. 322 c.p.p.), showing which part of the balance belongs to them. If ownership is disputed, the review court refers the question to the civil court and keeps the seizure in place meanwhile (art. 324(8) c.p.p.).

Consider the director of a Milan company under investigation for filing an inaccurate tax return. The judge orders a value-based seizure of 400,000 euros on his personal accounts, including an account held jointly with his wife that contains the proceeds of the sale of a flat she inherited. The decree justifies the risk solely by the nature of money.

At the review hearing the defence can argue that value confiscation is allowed only when direct confiscation is not possible, and the decree must explain why; that the risk is not reasoned on the specific facts; and that, if the tax debt is being paid in instalments and the payments are up to date, the seizure should not have been ordered. The wife, for her part, can ask for her share to be returned by documenting where the money came from. The outcome depends on the file, but each of these arguments is built within a few days, with precise documents.