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‘Blind’ man filmed giving directions and shopping

A man in Bari has been arrested after he defrauded the Italian state of €135,000 ($185,500) by claiming to suffer from “total blindness”. He was caught out after he was filmed performing normal activities such as shopping and giving directions.

Published: 26 February 2014 12:32 CET
'Blind' man filmed giving directions and shopping
Fake blindness appears to have become a popular form of fraud in Italy judging from headlines this past year. File photo: Freaktography

Over a period of nine years a 77-year-old man in Bari, southern Italy, claimed a total of €135,000 in disability allowance from INPS, Italy’s social security service, La Repubblica reported.

Just €53,000 of the total has been repaid to the state.

In a video clip (below) released by the Italy’s Guardia di Finanza (Financial Guard), the claimant is seen engaging in everyday activities including shopping and giving directions to strangers in the street.

Fake blindness appears to have become a popular form of fraud in Italy judging from headlines this past year.

In June 2013 forty people claiming benefits for blindness were arrested in Rome after police filmed them driving, reading newspapers, doing gymnastics, supermarket shopping and surfing the web in broad daylight.

According to Il Messaggero, they tricked the state out of some €3,583,000.

SEE ALSO: Not-so-blind justice for Italian benefit fraudsters

And in July last year it was discovered that a 64-year-old man – also from Bari – had been living off benefits for 30 years by claiming he was blind. 

He was snared by police after they used video cameras to catch him “leading a normal life”. He did his own shopping, crossed busy roads, helped out at the family grocery store and even drove a car, according to the Libero 24×7 news website. 

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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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