The Pavia Public Prosecutor's Office has notified 13 notices of closure of investigations to former managers of the Pavia Asst and administrators of First Aid, a cooperative with registered office in Pesaro, for an investigation that in March 2021 led to the arrest of four people, as well as the execution of searches and seizures of documents and computer equipment not only in Lombardy, but also in Marche, Lazio and Sicily, for alleged rigged tenders in the assignment of health transport services.
The news was reported today in a note released by the Pavia Public Prosecutor's Office and signed by the prosecutor Fabio Napoleone and the deputy Roberto Valli. The alleged crime is criminal association aimed at committing numerous crimes: bid rigging, fraud in public supplies, gangmastering and tax crimes. The overall value of the rigged Tenders would amount, according to what emerged from the investigation, to approximately 11 million euros.
As part of the same investigation, in October 2021 the Court of Pavia, at the request of the Prosecutor's Office, had ordered the preventive seizure of "the entire corporate complex of the cooperative - as stated in the press release from the Prosecutor's Office -, whose assets are approximately 5 million euros, as well as the seizure of an equivalent of approximately 200 thousand euros from the gangmasters".
The investigations carried out by the Guardia di Finanza Finanza of Pavia and Vigevano (Pavia) have allowed us to "identify several tenders for the assignment of ambulance transport services, in different parts of the national territory, including Pavia, Rome, Milan, Perugia, Ancona, Pescara, Naples and Vimercate, disturbed through the use of fraudulent means, in relation to which multiple frauds in the execution of the public service have also been ascertained".
“The investigations – the Pavia Public Prosecutor’s Office further underlines – have highlighted how the investigated cooperative, now under seizure and led by a judicial administrator appointed by the Court, was able to cope with a considerable reduction in the rates indicated by the contracting authorities through an illicit manipulation of labor costs; the cooperative paid its employees with salaries much lower than the minimum wage, forcing, in fact, its workers to also perform activities as volunteers, gaining an enormous competitive advantage”.
In this way, the service was carried out "in the midst of the pandemic, in hygienically precarious conditions that were detrimental to the health of the sick, in contempt of the most basic health standards imposed by the anti-Covid-19 legislation". The directors of First Aid are also being investigated "for having used tax credits as compensation, deriving from so-called research and development activities that were never carried out, for over 490 thousand euros, obtaining a significant tax saving; for not having correctly paid welfare and social security contributions for their employees for over 3,5 million euros (consisting of taxes and related penalties)".
Article published on 1 July 2022 - 20:14
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