SHARE
COPY LINK

CRIME

Vatican to open investigation into cold case of missing teen

The Vatican is opening an internal investigation into the case of Emanuela Orlandi, a teenager who disappeared in 1983 in one of Italy's darkest mysteries

Vatican to open investigation into cold case of missing teen
Demonstrators hold posters of Emanuela Orlandi, last seen in June 1983. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP

The Holy See has “authorised the opening of an investigation”, the family's lawyer Laura Sgro told Italian media on Wednesday. The Vatican declined to comment.

Orlandi, the daughter of a member of the Vatican's police, was last seen leaving a music class aged 15, and theories have circulated for decades about who took her and where her body may lie.

The Vatican said last month that it may open a tomb within its grounds to see if it holds the girl's remains, after Sgro received an anonymous tip-off telling her to look inside the marble-topped grave.

Orlandi murder: Is a missing teenager buried inside a Vatican tomb?

According to some theories, the teenager was snatched by an organised crime gang to put pressure on Vatican officials to recover a loan.

Another claim was that she was taken to force the release from prison of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk who attempted to assassinate Pope Jean Paul II in 1981.

“After 35 years of a failure (on the part of the Vatican) to collaborate, the opening of an investigation is an important step,” Orlandi's brother Pietro was quoted by media as saying.

The family braced for a breakthrough in October when human remains were discovered on a Vatican property, only to be disappointed when tests showed the skeleton did not belong to a teenage girl. 

READ ALSO:

 

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