Rome. Petrol mafia spa: Anna Bettozzi sentenced. The former real estate agent and aspiring pop star, known as Ana Bettz or Lady Petrolio, was sentenced today by the preliminary investigations judge of Rome, in one of the strands of the maxi-investigation on “Petrol Mafia Spa”, to 13 years and two months in prison. A trial conducted with the abbreviated rite: together with the widow of the oil magnate Sergio Di Cesare, eight other people were sentenced.
The judge ordered their sentences ranging from 9 years and 4 months to 4 years and 2 months as well as the confiscation of 180 million euros.
The investigation involving “Lady Petrolio” also involved the prosecutors of Catanzaro, Reggio Calabria and Naples. Investigations that uncovered a vast money laundering and self-laundering ring and repeated fraud in the mineral oil sector: the common denominator of the 4 investigations was the “nefarious synergy” between mafias and white-collar criminals. The prosecutors of the capital charged the entrepreneur and the other defendants with various charges of criminal association constituted for the commission of multiple tax crimes, illicit marketing of petroleum products, money laundering, self-laundering, also for the purpose of facilitating the activities of mafia-type associations. Bettozzi was arrested for this affair in May 2019: she was stopped aboard a Rolls Royce at the Ventimiglia border while she was heading to the Cannes Film Festival. On that occasion the Guardia di Finanza found her in possession of 300 thousand euros in cash and during a search of her hotel in Milan they found another 1,4 million euros. Money later seized by investigators.
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The investigations have revealed the links between Bettozzi and Neapolitan organized crime. “Ah Pie', I have the Camorra behind me!”, Lady Petrolio states in a wiretap. According to the investigators, the woman was fully aware of who her new business partners were. She, who boasted on the phone about having had the most important names in Italian business as partners, according to the prosecution had found it more profitable to link herself to Camorra groups. The turnover of her oil company, thanks to the injections of illicit capital to be laundered, had gone from 9 to 370 million euros in three years. At the center of the Roman and Neapolitan investigations was the Max Petroli company of which Bettozzi was the administrator – indicated as the undisputed leader of the criminal organization – later transformed into Made Petrol Italia managed by her daughter Virginia Di Cesare but, in fact, according to the investigators, always controlled by her mother.
Article published on 12 October 2022 - 19:29
