A manager of the Lazio region has been suspended on corruption charges. A total of 10 people including entrepreneurs and officials were investigated.
The manager of the Lazio Region is under investigation for corruption, because in exchange for mozzarella, oil, fuel and jobs for their children he would have helped several agricultural entrepreneurs and officials solve bureaucratic problems.
According to the prosecution, six incidents are contested, all linked to theobtaining European funds and the rapid provision of practices for Ciociaria or Pontine farms during the two years of the Covid pandemic. In total they were ten people reported for the crime of corruption between regional managers and entrepreneurs.
The investigations began in 2020 when the Frosinone forestry police began to investigate thedisbursement of European funds for rural development.
Mozzarella, oil, wine and hired children: this is how a manager of the Lazio Region was corrupted
Mozzarella, fuel, oil and hiring in exchange for European funds
The manager of the Lazio Region facilitated entrepreneurs in exchange for favors to collect in the form of supplies of mozzarella, cheese, meat, cans of oil, wine, good fuel up to the hiring of his daughter.
The official would have obtained, for example, numerous boxes of mozzarella and cheese, from an entrepreneur active in production, and several supplies of diesel for his car. In a second case he would have received some bottles of wine and a lunch at a restaurant in Cassinate.
One of his daughters would be hired in a company that works in the Pontine area in exchange for support to promote various loans. Not only that, she would also have received the approval to take on another child, always resolving bureaucratic procedures. In a fifth case she would have cashed in fuel vouchers for his car and finally in the sixth several oil supplies in exchange for information on financing and its disbursement.
The interceptions
“A bit of meat, mozzarella, various cheeses…I put in a bit of stew, a bit of slices and a bit of steak…I’ll even send you a recipe and for Christmas I’ll prepare lamb for you”. These are some of the intercepted conversations reported by Corriere della Sera, which describe the manager’s relationship with the entrepreneurs, while others describe the pressures of the latter towards the employees of their office: “It’s not urgent but we’re doing him a favor… can’t you close the file in the system so he can then submit the payment request?”.
The motivations of the Cassino investigating judge
“Any problem or request” from agricultural entrepreneurs close to him saw him move with “alarming protagonism” just to satisfy him. These are some of the reasons behind the Cassino investigating judge’s decision to suspend the manager responsible for the decentralized southern Lazio area for agricultural policies for a year from his duties and thus exclude him from public offices. According to the judge for preliminary investigations , the manager would have continued to have this conduct over time, to the point of “having made his illicit action a sort of ordinary working method“, claims the investigating judge.
