The Salerno Flying Squad has made two more arrests as part of the investigation into rigged tenders, in which regional councilor Nino Savastano was arrested yesterday and Salerno mayor Vincenzo Napoli is under investigation.
Two people linked to social cooperatives have been placed under house arrest for 20 days. The case is linked to the audio that had circulated in the hours immediately following the vote for the Municipal elections of October 3 and 4 and that had been reported by the opposition.
During the first day of the administrative elections in Salerno, Sunday 3 October, an audio message with intimidating content was circulated on social networks in which the author, presumably addressing the workers of a company, threatened to go "to personally check" the votes for a certain candidate for the City Council, explaining that he knew "where you vote and where you don't vote".
The audio message, immediately branded as “Fake news” from the outgoing and re-nominated mayor Vincenzo Naples, was found to be authentic following investigations conducted by the Salerno Flying Squad, coordinated by the Salerno Prosecutor's Office. The agents placed him under house arrest for 20 days Gianluca Izzo, de facto administrator of the social cooperative “San Matteo”, e Umberto Coscia, an employee of the same company, pursuant to an order issued by the investigating judge of the Court of Salerno at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
The judicial police had learned from the Facebook page of some minority councilors of the publication of the audio message; from the comments to the various posts it appeared that, probably, the message had been spread via Whatsapp or other social media and intended for a group composed of workers of an entity linked to the municipal administration that had “I expressed a candidate on the lists linked to the mayor Vincenzo Napoli”.
From listening to the audio, formally transmitted to the Salerno Public Prosecutor's Office, it appeared that a male voice was calling on all recipients to respect voting instructions evidently given previously, using phrases considered “with clear threatening content”. According to the precautionary measure, the audio had been forwarded to a group Whatsapp of which the employees of the cooperative "San Matteo" were part by Umberto Coscia and packaged by Gianluca Izzo, also the sender of a second communication, also sent via Whatsapp, also considered “of the same intimidating nature”.
During the house searches carried out against Coscia and another worker of the cooperative, a handwritten list was seized with the names of the voters of a candidate, Izzo's wife. A mobile phone was also found and examined, inside which the presence of a Whatsapp chat called “Coop Fatebene Fratelli” on which the audio messages had been forwarded.
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