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This Italian newsagent fought off armed robber – with sweets

When an armed robber walked into a newsagent's, his face covered and brandishing a pistol, this shopkeeper was not willing to hand over the contents of his till without first putting up a fight.

Published: 8 April 2016 17:27 CEST
This Italian newsagent fought off armed robber - with sweets
Policemen point to the robber's gun. Photo: Carabinieri Bari

The young man pointed his gun at the Bari shop owner as another customer looked on in shock. But the shopkeeper stood his ground and responded by shoving the sweets displays off the counter and hurling the sweets at the would-be robber – who quickly gave up, fleeing the premises.

Two plain-clothes policemen, who were patrolling the area to guard against robberies, spotted the man escaping and were able to catch, disarm and arrest him. While the gun was revealed to have been loaded only with blanks, the man was tried immediately.

The accused, named as 21-year-old Michele Leti, was already known to police for dealing drugs and receiving stolen goods. Leti was given a suspended sentence of one year and ten months.

Watch the fearless shopkeeper scare off the thief in the CCTV footage below.
 

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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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