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Italian man killed ex and hid her body in a wall

A man who murdered his ex-girlfriend, and hid her body in a cellar wall at a home in Lazio, has been jailed for 25 years.

Published: 25 November 2014 12:01 CET
Italian man killed ex and hid her body in a wall
Tonino Cianfarani denied murdering his ex girlfriend, Samanta Fava. Gavel photo: Shutterstock

Tonino Cianfarani, 41, was jailed on Monday for killing 35-year-old Samanta Fava in April 2012.

A search was launched after Fava was reported missing from Sora, a town south-east of Rome.

Police divers were brought in after Cianfarani claimed he had dumped her body in the Liri river after she died of an illness, Corriere della Sera reported last year.

But a police dog named Orso prompted investigators to break down a cellar wall in the home of Cianfarani’s parents in nearby Fontechiari, where they found Fava’s decomposing body, in June 2013.

Cianfarani was later arrested at Rome’s Ciampino airport as he returned from a trip to Sardinia.

He denied the charges against him and in court claimed Fava died by accidentally falling down the stairs, Corriere reported this week.

The number of women murdered in Italy has risen, with one victim every two days in 2013. Almost two thirds of the women murdered last year were killed by their partner or ex, research organization Eures said in a report published last week.

READ MORE: 2013 'black year' for female murders in Italy

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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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