Homes and businesses owned by the colossus of Italy's film industry, Vittorio Cecchi Gori, were the targets of police raids yesterday. The producer of the 1998 award winner Life is Beautiful is under investigation for money laundering.

Dozens of officers took documents from the producer's villas and palazzos in Rome and Florence and from the offices of his Fiorentina football club. His multimedia companies form a web that dominates the production, distribution and showing of films in Italy.

Last November an inquiry was launched into alleged money laundering by two of his colleagues, Paolo Cardini and Aldo Ferrari, but yesterday's move was the first concrete sign that the tycoon himself could face charges.

The Cecchi Gori Group, said to be worth around $300m (£215m), has been troubled by debt, its owner's bitter divorce, competition from Rupert Murdoch and a poor season by Fiorentina, which is near bankruptcy.

Investigators are looking into £22m allegedly cycled through different companies to try to plug holes in the accounts.

The group has denied wrongdoing. A lawyer for Mr Cecchi Gori said his client had been the victim of fraud. The prosecutors, Luca Turco and Gabriele Mazzotta, made no comment.

Police who tramped through the group's headquarters at Rome's Palazzo Borghese were afforded glimpses of Mr Cecchi Gori's taste in overblown Baroque decor: ubiquitious gilt, velvet, winged cherubs and purple.