SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Wild boar sniff out and destroy €20K cocaine stash in Tuscan forest

Wild boar snuffling in the forests of eastern Tuscany have dug up and destroyed a €20,000 stash of cocaine buried by drug dealers, police said.

Wild boar sniff out and destroy €20K cocaine stash in Tuscan forest
There are two million wild boars in Italy according to Italian agricultural group Coldiretti. Photo: Depositphotos

Wild boar, or cinghiale, are found in ever-increasing numbers in the Italian countryside, much to the dismay of the country's farmers, motorists, and now drug dealers.

READ ALSO: 'They destroy everything': Italian farmers protest rising number of wild boar

The animals unearthed and broke into a sealed package of cocaine hidden in the Tuscan forest, near Montepulciano, before scattering the contents through woodland, local media reported.

The unconventional drugs bust was discovered when police wiretapped suspected drug traffickers – an Italian and three Albanians – and heard them complain about the damage to their woodland stash.

The drug reportedly came from the nearby city of Perugia before being hidden and peddled around the eastern Tuscan city of Arezzo and further afield.

The gang had reportedly sold two kilos of cocaine in a month before being busted.

 

 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

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.

SHOW COMMENTS