Former city councilor Eugenia D’Angelo tells Fanpage.it how she informed the police about the crimes that were allegedly committed at the technical office of the Municipality of Aversa.
It is around the benefits provided for in the Housing Plans that many crimes have occurred in public administration. Example? The declaration of the increase in volumes. You acquire a dilapidated building and ask for permission increase volumes by 30%, as required by law. Except that often that 30% becomes much, much more. More volumes, more apartments, and more money for those who sell the houses that will be built.
The fundamental complicity in setting up this plan is that of the employees of the municipal technical office. In Aversa last April 22nd the police arrested 8 people including public employees and entrepreneurs, are accused of having set up a bribe ring aimed at falsifying urban planning documents to encourage the illicit increase in volume of a building in Aversa from which apartments were sold for around 6 million euros. The forgery was revealed by a former city councillor, Eugenia D’Angelo, who told Fanpage.it the whole story.
Testimony: “They told me to mind my own business”
It was 2019 when the then municipal councilor of Aversa, Eugenia D’Angelohe received a complaint regarding the renovation of a property following which many brand new apartments had been sold. “I received a warning, in this package there were photos from Google Heart that showed how the volume of a property that had just been renovated was much lower than what had been declared to the technical office” D’Angelo tells us.”It was an old rural building with many green spaces, what could be seen from those photos did not match the permit to build and increase the volume that the builder had received – explains – Apartments worth around 6 million euros were then built there. According to those declared volumes, 6-7 apartments could have been built, but instead they made more than 20“.
Aversa, bribes in exchange for building permits: 8 municipal managers and entrepreneurs arrested
An increase in volumes which would therefore have been well above the 30% allowed by law. The former municipal councilor, having received the complaint, immediately notified both the political and technical sides. “I went to the Mayor and asked him to verify what was reported in the complaint, but I was told that it was not the job of politicians to verify the validity of the administrative acts of the Municipality” she says. But after the first cold response, D’Angelo goes to speak to the manager of the Technical Office of the Municipality of Aversa: “I asked him to self-revoke the building permit, but in response he told me that I should be a city councilor and not deal with these things“.
At that point the former councilor requests access to the documents, which should have been obtained without any other consequent action, but instead the manager of the technical office notifies the owner of the property that D’Angelo has requested access to the documents. The only action that the technical office carries out is to reduce the number of apartments that can be built. “After they informed the owner of the building that I had accessed the documents, I understood that something was wrong.” he explains to us. Shortly thereafter the call from the Carabinieri: “In 2021 I was called by the Carabinieri and I handed over to them all the documentation I had collected and all the documents that had been done“
“The official who counts the bribes in the Municipality is a symbol”
The Carabinieri of Aversa set up a complex investigation also making use of a series of bugs and cameras that are placed inside the municipal offices. And they are precisely these tand cameras recording the exchange of bribes between some of those arrested. Everything happened directly in the offices of the Municipality of Aversa. From the images released by the Carabinieri, a public employee can be seen at his desk counting the money from the bribes, all the 50 euro notes. “That image could be the icon of a proven system – says D’Angelo – in the sense that only a person who does not fear being discovered or punished can start counting that money inside a municipal office“.
The image is undoubtedly impactful, the alleged crime contested by the magistrates of the Naples North Prosecutor’s Office is that of corruption aimed at falsification of public documents, those which would have been necessary to obtain building permits by cheating on the volumes. The arrests have certainly shocked the Municipality, which is currently under police administration awaiting the next local elections which will be held together with the European elections on 8 and 9 June. “What happened in Aversa can become a symbol of a more comprehensive system that can affect the whole of Campania and which revolves around the housing plan” D’Angelo underlines. “But not only that, it can also implement a money laundering system for criminal organizations“.
