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Police find drug lab near Leaning Tower of Pisa

Police have raided an apartment near the Leaning Tower of Pisa which was used as a laboratory for the packaging of heroin. A young couple has been arrested.

Published: 6 May 2014 15:12 CEST
Police find drug lab near Leaning Tower of Pisa
Police found a total of 50kg of heroin with an estimated value of €500,000 ($696,000) in an apartment near the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Photo: Steve Carney/Flickr

An Albanian woman and her Romanian husband have been accused of running a laboratory for the packaging of heroin in their apartment, Italian news agency Ansa reported. 

Inside the couple’s apartment police found a total of 50kg of heroin with an estimated value of €500,000 ($696,000).

The drugs were hidden in a cavity in the bathroom.

In the apartment police also found presses, packaging tape and envelopes as well as €22,000.

An Italian and a Tunisian man were also arrested shortly after they allegedly purchased a large quantity of the drug from the couple.

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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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