Energy mega-fraud: Enel and Italgas employees also investigated

Fraud of 3,3 million euros with tampered meters and phantom utilities, 14 ordinances: Enel and Italgas employees investigated

Marcianise. Today in the provinces of Naples and Salerno, soldiers of the NOR - Operational Section of the Carabinieri Company of Marcianise - executed an order for the application of personal precautionary measures issued, at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Noia, by the GIP of the local Court against 14 subjects (two of whom are in prison, one under house arrest and eleven subjected to the obligation to remain at home).

A precautionary measure was also issued against the same individuals concerning the direct preventive seizure for an amount equal to Euro 462.400,00.

2The subjects involved are being investigated in various capacities for the crimes of: – “criminal association (art. 416 co. 1,2,3,5) _aimed at committing aggravated thefts (624 and 625 cp) and fraud (art. 640 cp) carried out in collaboration with certain owners of commercial activities, in the field of electricity and natural gas».

The proceedings in which the aforementioned precautionary measures were issued have as their object a broad and widespread investigative activity carried out, from November 2015 to December 2017, by the Carabinieri of the NOR - Operational Section of the Marcianise Company - with technical activities (telephone and environmental interceptions), observation, control and shadowing services, searches and seizures.

This investigative activity has allowed us to identify and document the existence of a veritable "illicit market" that operates in true "competition" with national electricity and gas suppliers, through the commission of an undetermined series of crimes—particularly fraud and aggravated theft—using a "business" organization, equipped with the means, locations, and people to achieve illicit profits at the expense of electricity and gas supply companies, including Enel and Italgas, for a total value of €3.

In particular, the investigative activity carried out, moreover, with the help of specialized Italgas and Enel personnel, made it possible to ascertain the sophisticated methods with which the criminal actions were carried out: tampering with the meters with alteration of the electronic circuits, alteration of the chronograph, installation of radio control for the commanded interruption of the "phases", transfers repeated over time with fictitious registration in the hands of non-existent subjects or subjects unaware of the criminal operations in progress.

The sixty-year-olds NE and CA were taken to prison as the “chief promoters” and creators of the particular fraudulent techniques used in the commission of the crimes. In particular, both of them: physically tampered with the meters with various techniques, including innovative ones; provided instructions to the other associates regarding the management of the various customers, providing, when necessary, technical and/or administrative assistance, personally, for the practices of fictitious registration of supplies or by assigning other associates indicated below with the role of electrician technician; collected directly from the customers and/or from the other associates with the role of “salesmen” in the area, the monthly (or periodic) fees as a “fee” for the service provided; provided for the division of the aforementioned criminal proceeds among the associates; furthermore, one of them, in particular NE, was also responsible for instructing and taking care of the fraudulent “administrative” practices aimed at the fictitious registration of energy supplies.

LG, an employee of the Italgas Spa company, was placed under house arrest.

Another 11 subjects were subjected to the obligation to reside in the municipality of residence. In particular: – RG, class 59, employee of the company Enel SpA,

six individuals as "procurers" and "contact persons" in the territory of the various customers to whom they guaranteed, in addition to the instruction of the bureaucratic procedure for the registration, in most cases fraudulent, of the energy supply, also the "technical" assistance provided through the remaining members with technical and/or administrative skills; furthermore, they collected periodic fees from customers for the service provided by the association, which they then delivered to the head promoters, as well as: • four other "trusted collaborators" with the role of carrying out tasks assigned by the head promoters, such as, among others, the collection of illicit fees, as well as the execution of small repairs to customers' electrical systems; in particular, one of them also provided his availability to register "fictitious" companies in whose name the activation of new supplies could be shown, and this in favor of customers for whom the other fraudulent methods for ensuring the free provision of energy supplies were no longer practicable.