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CRIME

Homeless man set on fire in Palermo

A homeless man was taken to hospital in Sicily after he was caught up in a fire lit on a pile of garbage he was hiding behind.

Published: 14 April 2015 10:46 CEST
Homeless man set on fire in Palermo
The homeless man was caught in the flames in Palermo, Sicily's capital. Palermo photo: Shutterstock

A group of people, still unidentified by the authorities, set a pile of cardboard boxes on fire in the city of Palermo, the Sicilian capital, on Sunday afternoon.

Andrea Cangemi, 62, was found by firefighters when they came to extinguish the fire and was taken to hospital in Palermo in a critical condition, Il Giornale reported.

He left hospital on Monday after receiving medical care. Officials from the hospital said doctors will be visiting him now that he is back on the streets of Palermo, according to Meridio News.

An investigation is under way and the police are trying to establish the identities of the perpetrators by using CCTV footage of the area.

Live Sicilia said three young people would have been seen fleeing for the crime scene.

By Anna Pujol Mazzini

SEE ALSO: Homeless man to get Vatican burial

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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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