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CRIME

Long bus wait prompts hospital car theft

A pair of thieves who stole a car from outside the emergency room of a Sicilian hospital did so because they were tired of waiting for the bus, Italian media reported on Friday.

Published: 29 May 2015 11:59 CEST
Long bus wait prompts hospital car theft
Giulio Muratore (L) and Michela Adelfio were arrested over the theft.

Michela Adelfio, 40, and 41-year-old Giulio Muratore were arrested outside Palermo in the Fiat Punto they stand accused of stealing from a nearby hospital.

On being stopped by police the duo said they decided to take the car after waiting in vain for the bus to arrive, Giornale di Sicilia reported.

The pair went to hospital for checks and afterwards discovered the Fiat parked outside the emergency room, with the doors open and the keys in the ignition.

They sped off towards Palermo, leaving car owner Petralia Sottana to soon discover the theft.

She contacted police who alerted their patrol squads in the area, one of which tracked the car down after a few minutes and arrested Adelfio and Muratore.

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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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