Behind the sale of the apartment of Montecarlo bequeathed in 1999 by Countess Annamaria Colleoni to the now defunct National Alliance, there was a hidden money laundering activity carried out by the partner, brother-in-law and father-in-law of the then president of the party.
Casa Montecarlo, Fini sentenced to 2 years and 8 months
Gianfranco Fini himself would have played a role in this operation, with what his lawyers define as a sort of moral competition. This is what the fourth criminal section of the Court of Rome established yesterday with a sentence that came seven years after the request for the defendants to be sent to trial. After about two hours of deliberation, the judges sentenced the former president of the Chamber to 2 years and 8 months in prison, his partner Elisabetta Tulliani to 5 years, his brother-in-law Giancarlo Tulliani to 6 years, and his father-in-law to 5 years. Sergio Tulliani and 8 years to Rudolf Theodor Baetsen. The court essentially accepted the prosecution system of the Rome Prosecutor’s Office. However, if the Tullianis were found guilty of two episodes of money laundering, the crime for Fini was recognized “limited to the segment of conduct – we read in the dispositive read by the magistrates – relating to the authorization to sell the apartment” at number 14 of Boulevard Princesse Charlotte, in the Principality of Monte Carlo.
The generic mitigating circumstances were recognized and the aggravating circumstance of transnationality was excluded for both him and his relatives. «I did not authorize the sale to a company attributable to Giancarlo Tulliani. When I gave the OK I didn’t know who the buyer was because it was an offshore company”, commented the former president of the Chamber as he left the judicial citadel of the capital. His lawyers Francesco Caroleo Grimaldi and Michele Sarno announced the appeal, arguing that the court, «after having acquitted Fini of the material conduct of money laundering, recognized against him a sort of moral participation in the illicit activity, for having strengthened his criminal purpose”, but “this makes no sense – the lawyers point out – given that he didn’t have the faintest idea that the buyer was Tulliani”. This thesis was also supported by Elisabetta at the hearing: «I hid Giancarlo’s desire to buy the house in Monte Carlo from Fini, nor did I ever tell him the origin of that money, which I was convinced was my brother’s».
The judges also ordered the confiscation of 793 thousand euros from Elisabetta Tulliani, 993 thousand euros from her brother deposited in current accounts seized by the Finance Department between 2016 and 2017 and 2.4 million from her father. The equivalent of the bank transfer with the reason “liquidation for decree 78 of 2009” arrived from Francesco Corallo’s companies to the current account of Sergio Tulliani, a retired Enel employee, precisely in conjunction with the approval of the decree law which “brought enormous advantages for Corallo because it offered him the possibility of offering video lottery rights as a pledge”.
THE REACTION
«On the one hand I feel disappointed, because I was confident in the acquittal also due to the fact that the State Attorney’s Office, the civil party, had requested it. At the same time – he added to the microphones of Tg1 in the evening – I am curious to read the reasons for the sentence, because it is illogical. I don’t think I owe anyone an apology, I don’t think I’ve wronged anyone. I have to blame myself for the carelessness, the inattention, was it my duty to verify the real nature of that offshore company? Maybe, but the graves are full of hindsight.” «On a human level I paid a heavy price, also for family involvement. On a political level – concluded the former president of Montecitorio – I feel bitterness, because someone even on the right took the opportunity to say “enough with Fini”. But it’s in politics.” Indeed, after the clash with Silvio Berlusconi, the media campaign began on the house of Monte Carlo, which was followed by his departure from the PDL and the creation of Future and Freedom. A failed experiment that led to the “political end” of Fini.
THE ACCUSATORY SYSTEM
According to the original accusatory system, the “king of slots” Francesco Corallo (for whom the statute of limitations was recognised), as owner of a legal gaming concession company, would not have paid the Italian State 85 million euros in state taxes and a part of that money would have ended up, through an intricate corporate structure reconstructed by the Scico financiers, in three offshore companies: Printemps Ltd, Timara Ltd and Jayden Holding Ltd, referable to the Tulliani brothers. Printemps had been used to get Fini’s brother-in-law to buy the Monegasque apartment for just 300 thousand euros in July 2008, which was then merged into another shielded company attributable to Elisabetta, Timara Ltd. Then there is the accusation of self-laundering, because the property «was resold on 15 October 2015 for one million and 360 thousand euros, a sum which first passed through the French current account of Giancarlo Tulliani, and then was transferred partly to the Dubai account and partly to Italian MPS account” both registered in the name of Fini’s brother-in-law. The latter then proceeded to “forward” half of that sum to his sister. Two days after learning that he was under investigation, Giancarlo left for the Emirates: since then he has never returned and is still at large.
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