Thanks to the ruse, Rocco Schirripa is now in jail in Milan as a suspect in the 1983 killing of Turin judge Bruno Caccia, according to the reports.
Investigators sent an anonymous letter to a former 'Ndrangheta mafia chief, Domenico Belfiore, who is currently serving out a life sentence for ordering the killing – but he is under house arrest for health reasons.
The letter contained a photocopy of an old newspaper article about Belfiore's arrest with Rocco Schirripa's name written on the back.
The letter got reaction from Belfiore and others, just as the investigators hoped, enabling them to overhear wiretapped conversations that pointed to Schirripa's role in the killing as a “soldier” working for the Belfiore clan of 'Ndrangheta.
The body of judge Caccia, who was investigating 'Ndrangheta's criminal activities in the northern Piedmont region, was found riddled with 14 bullets.
The murder during the so-called “Years of Lead” marked by violence by the extremist Red Brigade group was at first thought to be politically motivated, before it turned into a mafia probe.
The scheme that identified Schirripa was coordinated by the Milan prosecution office and star prosecutor Ilda Boccassini, famous for taking on former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
CRIME
Suspect found 32 years after Italy judge murder
A suspected accomplice in the murder of an anti-mafia judge was arrested Tuesday 32 years after the killing thanks to a sting operation combining an anonymous letter with wiretaps, Italian media reported on Tuesday.
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.
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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