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Italian arrested in Venezuela murder probe

Italian police have arrested a fugitive wanted in the 2012 killing of a Frenchman in Venezuela, whose dismembered body was thrown out to sea in a suitcase, media reports said on Sunday.

Published: 8 December 2014 09:05 CET
Italian arrested in Venezuela murder probe
Police car photo: Shutterstock

The Italian man, sought by Interpol for the grisly murder, was discovered at a campsite on the outskirts of Rome, and taken to prison to await extradition to France.

At the time of the murder Venezuelan police said the suspect was the butler of the victim, Paul Maurice Wolnerman, 71, who was shot dead on April 2012 in the port city of Lecheria.

Another suspect, Wolnerman's driver, was arrested in Venezuela in 2012 and admitted participating in the murder. Police described him as the "direct author" of the crime.

Wolnerman, who had lived in Venezuela since 2005, had decided to sell his penthouse, car and motorboat and move to the Dominican Republic with his butler, according to the investigation.

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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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