Illicit collection of public funds to support publishing activities. The Guardia di Finanza (Economic and Financial Police Units) of Taranto and Caserta executed a precautionary seizure order of 4,2 million euros.
The provision was issued by the president of the jurisdictional section of the Court of Courts of Naples against a cooperative journalistic society and its representatives. The latter are accused of damage to the treasury and illicit collection of public contributions to support editorial activity. The investigations of the GdF towards the cooperative society (beneficiary of large contributions) have ascertained that it had changed its registered office and newspaper name several times.
The cooperative company also allegedly produced false documentation certifying a corporate structure different from the actual one, thus misleading the Presidency of the Council (Department for Information and Publishing) into improperly disbursing public contributions for approximately 2008 million euros for the years 2012 to 4,2.
The investigations revealed that the journalists who took turns in the association during the period in question, allegedly disavowed their voluntary and substantial membership in the cooperative as members. The journalists, says the GdF, "in reality would have carried out exclusively employee activities as editors and that the formal association relationship as cooperators would have been imposed on them under threat of dismissal".
Following the investigations, three people, de facto administrators of the aforementioned company, were reported to the Judiciary for the crime of aggravated fraud functional to obtaining public funds. Now the seizure operations have concerned real estate, current accounts and credits attributable to the same administrators, up to the amount of the contested damage to the treasury.
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