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Policeman’s ear ripped off in road-rage attack

An off-duty policeman had his ear bitten off in a brutal attack at a roadside in southern Italy on Monday.

Published: 16 July 2013 12:12 CEST
Policeman's ear ripped off in road-rage attack
The policeman had his ear bitten off and suffered multiple facial fractures. Photo: Alessandro Prada/Flickr

The attack happened after he tried to intervene in a road rage incident.

He had been travelling with his family in the Apulia region when he attempted to claim the drivers' tempers, La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reported.

Despite identifying himself as a policeman, he was set upon by two men and beaten. A fellow officer in the area attempted to stop the attack but he too was assaulted.

An emergency services helicopter was sent from Bari and the attackers were arrested, the newspaper said.

Leonardo D’Ercole, 41, and 26-year-old Leonardo Ricucci are accused of grievous bodily harm and violent against a public official.

In addition to ripping off the first policeman’s ear the men reportedly caused multiple facial fractures, while his colleague suffered concussion and other minor injuries. 

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CRIME

Italy has most recovery fund fraud cases in EU, report finds

Italy is conducting more investigations into alleged fraud of funds from the EU post-Covid fund and has higher estimated losses than any other country, the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) said.

Published: 8 April 2024 17:05 CEST
Italy has most recovery fund fraud cases in EU, report finds

The EPPO reportedly placed Italy under special surveillance measures following findings that 179 out of a total of 206 investigations into alleged fraud of funds through the NextGenerationEU programme were in Italy, news agency Ansa reported.

Overall, Italy also had the highest amount of estimated damage to the EU budget related to active investigations into alleged fraud and financial wrongdoing of all types, the EPPO said in its annual report published on Friday.

The findings were published after a major international police investigation into fraud of EU recovery funds on Thursday, in which police seized 600 million euros’ worth of assets, including luxury villas and supercars, in northern Italy.

The European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, established to help countries bounce back from the economic blow dealt by the Covid pandemic, is worth more than 800 billion euros, financed in large part through common EU borrowing.

READ ALSO: ‘It would be a disaster’: Is Italy at risk of losing EU recovery funds?

Italy has been the largest beneficiary, awarded 194.4 billion euros through a combination of grants and loans – but there have long been warnings from law enforcement that Covid recovery funding would be targeted by organised crime groups.

2023 was reportedly the first year in which EU financial bodies had conducted audits into the use of funds under the NextGenerationEU program, of which the Recovery Fund is part.

The EPPO said that there were a total of 618 active investigations into alleged fraud cases in Italy at the end of 2023, worth 7.38 billion euros, including 5.22 billion euros from VAT fraud alone.

At the end of 2023, the EPPO had a total of 1,927 investigations open, with an overall estimated damage to the EU budget of 19.2 billion euros.

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