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Italian police ‘identify’ severed leg victim

Police in Rome believe they have now identified the victim whose severed leg tattooed with the words “a good day to die” was discovered earlier this week.

Italian police 'identify' severed leg victim
Police believe the leg is that of a man with previous convictions for drugs. Photo: Shutterstock

Police on Friday said they suspect the victim to be a man in his 40s with previous convictions for drugs, Rome daily Il Messaggero reported.

However, they are still awaiting the results of DNA tests to confirm the man’s identity.

The leg, which was discovered by a fisherman on Tuesday near the Tiber river in the north of the capital, is severed below the knee and sports various tattoos including the words “a good day to die” and a football slogan supporting one of Rome’s teams, Lazio.

According to an autopsy carried out at the Gemelli hospital in Rome, the man was killed and probably cut into pieces using an electric saw. The leg was thought to have been in the water for less than two days.

The tattoos have been key to the investigation into the man’s identity.

Since the grisly discovery, police have been interviewing tattoo artists in the Lazio area as well as those who have reported people missing, particularly fanatical football fans known as ultràs in Italy.

Police are not ruling out the possibility other body parts could be found.

On Thursday afternoon investigators dredged the area of the river Tiber where the limb was discovered.

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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.

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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