Around €363 million are believed to be held in trust in Bank of Valletta accounts linked to the owners of an Italian shipping company whose 2012 collapse had led to seven people being jailed for fraudulent bankruptcy, according to Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

But the trusts are believed to have held over €600 million in 2013, leading to concerns that illicit gains are being transferred to safer havens elsewhere to prevent the approximately 13,000 people who invested in the company to recover their life savings.

The Deiulemar shipping company, which was based in the city of Torre del Greco in the province of Naples, had accumulated some €900 million in debts before its collapse, which was deemed to be a case of fraudulent bankruptcy by a court in Rome.

Seven of the company’s owners were jailed last July, with the heaviest jail terms – 17 years and two months each – reserved for brothers Angelo and Pasquale della Gatta, the two sons of one of the company’s three founders. Their sister Michaela della Gatta was jailed for 9 years and 10 months, while their mother Lucia Boccia was jailed for 8 years.

The only surviving member of the company’s founding trio, Giuseppe Lembo, was jailed for 15 years and 8 months, while his sister Marialuigia Lembo – the widow of the third founder – was jailed for 9 years and 2 months. Her daughter Giovanna Iuliano was jailed for 10 years and 2 months.

Investigators believe that the owners illicitly transferred assets to trusts in Malta, Switzerland, Madeira and the British Virgin Islands to avoid exposure to creditors, and the Malta-based assets are now believed to be held in three trusts worth €363 million.

The trusts are believed to have held some €600 million in assets in 2013, amid concerns that the investigations are spurring the owners to transfer their illicit hoard to safer havens. Recovering these assets is crucial if the thousands of people who invested their life savings in the company are to recover anything from the massive fraud perpetrated by the shipping company’s owners.

The owners are reported to have engaged in asset stripping since at least 2005, through the setting up of numerous companies which were often based overseas. Profitable assets were sold off, with the proceeds going to the owners themselves rather than to settle the company’s mounting debts.

These practices had ultimately led to the harsh sentences against those involved, but investors are facing an uphill struggle as they strive to recover what was fraudulently taken away from them.