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CRIME

Inmate who smuggled in drugs to Italian prison in his intestines caught by sniffer dogs

A prisoner who had been allowed to briefly visit his family outside the prison was later found carrying drugs in his stomach.

Published: 2 January 2019 17:50 CET
Inmate who smuggled in drugs to Italian prison in his intestines caught by sniffer dogs
Photo: ChiccoDodiFC/DepositPhotos

The incident occurred at the Neapolitan prison of Secondigliano shortly before New Year's Eve.

A prisoner had been given permission to visit his family over Christmas outside the prison walls, according to a report in Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore. 

The prisoner then reentered the prison with several capsules filled with hashish resin in his stomach. Two police dogs, Igor and Caesar, reportedly identified the prisoner during a search of the prison before the inmate had time to distribute. 

Secondigliano maximum security facility holds just over 1,300 prisoners and is situated in a part of the southern Italian city of Naples that has high crime rates.

The incarceration centre made headlines last month when the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport announced that it would offer training and resources for a full scale car and lorry servicing business to open inside the prison walls.

READ MORE: Croatia arrests wanted Italian former mafia member

 

 

 

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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