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CRIME

Italy makes ‘revenge porn’ a crime

Italian MPs unanimously approved a new law on Tuesday criminalizing the unsolicited sharing of compromising erotic pictures or video, known as "revenge porn".

Published: 3 April 2019 09:19 CEST
Italy makes 'revenge porn' a crime
In Italy, sharing compromising pictures is now punishable by up to six years in jail. File photo: Jung Jeon-Je/AFP

The offence will be punishable by between one and six years in jail, and fines of up to €15,000.

The proposal was put forward by the rightwing opposition party Forza Italia of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. It is part of a reform bill dubbed “Code Red”, which aims to give greater protection to victims of violence and stalking.

READ ALSO: Italy considers harsher sentences for attacks on women

Italy's ruling populist coalition — made up of the hard-right League party and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) — had largely rejected the revenge porn proposal last Thursday, arguing it wanted a special law targeting the issue rather than making it part of the “code red” reform.

The move had sparked anger in the assembly and the discussion of the text had to be postponed after opposition members both from the left and right staged a protest.

Discussions were relaunched on Tuesday and the amendments eventually approved by all political sides.

READ ALSO: Italy just made it easier to claim self-defence if you hurt or kill an intruder

“Reason has won. If we voted yes today, it was solely thanks to the protest of opposition parties,” Forza Italia lawmaker Mara Carfagna said following the vote.

Meanwhile, the League party was forced to drop a suggested change seeking the voluntary chemical castration of sexual violence perpetrators after the M5S fiercely opposed the proposal.

Under the proposal, a person found guilty of sexual violence could have opted for reversible medical castration instead of going to jail.

READ ALSO: Italy's Salvini calls for chemical castration for alleged rapists of American au pair


Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

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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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