Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

FOOTBALL

Italian police seize Sampdoria owner’s assets in fraud investigation

Genoa's Sampdoria football club is at the centre of fraud and money laundering allegations relating to the sale of player Pedro Obiang.

Published: 28 November 2018 11:37 CET
Italian police seize Sampdoria owner's assets in fraud investigation
Sampdoria's president Massimo Ferrero at a match. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

Italian police said today that they had seized 2.6 million euros ($2.9 million) in cash and property from Sampdoria football club president Massimo Ferrero, the club and five other people as part of a financial investigation. 

The investigators are particularly interested in funds related to the 2015 transfer of Pedro Obiang, a Spanish midfielder, from Sampdoria to West Ham.

The investigation centres on fake receipts and invoices, money laundering and fraud allegations, and relates to the flow of money between different companies in the “Ferrero Group”.

As well as being club president, Ferrero is a film producer and owns cinemas in Rome.

The Guardia di Finanza, the Italian financial police, said in a statement that a sum of 1.2 million euros related to the Obiang sale could have been diverted “and partly reused to clean up the financial positions of other indebted companies in the group and to finance two other related companies in the Ferrero group” as part of the production of a film.

The police statement said they had seized financial assets, including more than 200,000 euros' worth from the football club, and from a building in Florence.

Ferrero, 68, purchased the Genoa club in the summer of 2014. They won their only Serie A title in 1991, with their biggest European success the Cup Winners' Cup in 1990.

This season they are 12th in Italian top-flight league, 21 points behind champions Juventus.

READ ALSO:

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.

SHOW COMMENTS