LIVORNO. According to the accusation, they deceived 32 people by having them hand over the deposit and then (not) rent the same two apartments for which they had the mandate for sale – one in via Marradi and the other in via Franchini in Livorno, the latter of the father of one of the suspects – and, on one occasion, by not returning an advance of 15,000 euros for the already agreed upon purchase of one of the homes. Two real estate agents – the fifty-six-year-old Riccardo Manzi from Livorno, owner of the Assitalia Group in via delle Grazie and piazza Attias, and the Pisan partner Alessandro Acampora, aged 55 – are under investigation for complicity in aggravated fraud for having obtained «22,600 and 27,700 euros to title of deposit or security, obtaining an unfair profit”, so we read in the decree of the investigating judge Mario Profeta which, for Manzi, orders the ban on carrying out the activity in the real estate sector for six months and the seizure of the portion of the house in via Franchini owned by the father and worth 46,711.83 euros.
The accusations
Twenty-four, according to investigations by the Livorno finance group, were the victims of the alleged joint action of the two professionals, with 19 of these who then filed a complaint. «They would have taken advantage – we read in the documents – of the fact that the injured people were almost exclusively non-EU citizens looking for housing at advantageous economic conditions, such as to hinder private defense and taking into account that the intermediation activity was carried out with professional forms ». Manzi alone, also accused of embezzlement for having withheld the 15,000 euro deposit paid by a person who wanted to buy his father’s apartment in via Franchini, is also under investigation for seven other alleged scams, similar to the previous ones in which he is called involved together with his partner, “procuring an unfair profit of 9,250 euros”, with sums not returned, depending on the various situations, from 2,250 to one thousand euros. But even in these cases only five of them reported. The prosecutor’s office, for Acampora, did not ask for any interdictory measures: the 56-year-old from Pisa, who professes to be innocent, is only involved in 19 of the alleged 32 scams (in total there are 31 scams and one embezzlement ed), limited to the house in via Marradi of which the agency would have had, from the owner, the exclusive mandate for the sale.
The alleged system
The two houses would have been shown to a multitude of people who, if interested, were then invited to stipulate a rental proposal, with the payment of a deposit. Which then, according to the reconstruction of the yellow flames, would never have been returned. Amounts that vary depending on the victims, approximately from 400 to 6,200 euros. But then, after some time had passed, any attempt to contact the real estate agents, with Manzi in particular, would have been in vain. «One of the victims – we read in the seizure decree, which gives an example of how the alleged illicit system that ran from 2022 to last year would have worked – had spoken to Manzi, who had shown her the apartment in via Marradi, immediately liked it. He had therefore signed a rental proposal and paid 1,200 euros in cash. The agreement included the delivery of the keys to the house. Then, however, she had in vain contacted Manzi to meet the owners and to sign the contract, but she was no longer able to track him down.” Other people would have tried to knock on the agency, in via delle Grazie, finding it closed. In the case of embezzlement, however, the fifty-six year old from Livorno would not have returned 15,000 euros of deposit to a person who had undertaken to purchase the apartment in via Franchini for 250,000, but had then had to renounce it “due to the impossibility of reaching upon signing the sale, also taking into account that Manzi had simultaneously promised the same property for sale to another person, as well as rented it to a significant number of people”.
The judge’s decision
The investigating judge accepted the seizure of the sums requested by the public prosecutor, but limited it to the cases (24 scams and one embezzlement) in which the complaint was presented. «The scheme of the scam – writes judge Mario Profeta – is the traditional one: artifice and deception, misleading, unfair profit and damage to others». According to the court, the purpose of the disqualification measure not to practice the profession for six months “is to stop the criminal conduct that continues to be carried out by Manzi, who the measure will allow him to reflect on the absence of a way out in a system in which trust is fundamental for those who intend to gain a share of the market”.
