It continues before the Court of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, presided over by the sole judge Davide Valenziano, the trial against Maria Ristaldo, a sixty-year-old from San Tammaro and owner of a well-known livestock and buffalo farm, sent to trial for aggravated fraud against a Sammaritan dairy.
The preliminary hearing was enriched, during the last hearing, by the testimonies of the NAS officers, who confirmed the investigative findings of the colleagues previously heard.
The military reconstructed in detail the inspections and investigations conducted at the Ristaldo company, accused of having supplied cow's milk passed off as buffalo milk, violating the contract with the recipient dairy, located in the heart of Santa Maria Capua Vetere.
According to what emerged in court, the fraud consisted of the repeated sale of non-compliant products, which the dairy would have used to produce mozzarella, unaware of its real composition.
During the hearing, the Carabinieri also filed sales invoices that were considered crucial for the reconstruction of the economic damage suffered by the dairy: an “unfair profit”, as the indictment states, in favour of Ristaldo and corresponding to the commercial value of the lower quality milk.
In the proceedings, the lawyers Gaetano and Raffaele Crisileo have joined the civil action, while the defense of the accused is entrusted to the lawyer Vincenzo D'Angelo. The questioning of Maria Ristaldo is expected at the next hearing, which will be followed by the examination of the defense witnesses and technical consultants.
Meanwhile, against the backdrop of this legal case, an even more alarming picture emerges. In recent days, in fact, the authorities have seized thousands of quintals of product intended for dairy processing in various companies in the province of Caserta. The material, according to investigators, would have been used by some of the most well-known dairy companies in the area.
The operation, with an overall estimated value of over 200 million euros, highlighted serious violations of Italian and European regulations regarding the traceability and use of concentrated milk, including the lack of a mandatory electronic register.
A hard blow to the image of the Caserta agri-food sector, which has always been the flagship of Made in Italy, now called to deal with the shadows of fraud and irregularities.
Article published on 5 April 2025 - 10:10
It's strange how certain companies can behave in such a way, especially in such an important sector as agri-food. Let's hope the truth comes out and that there is justice for all.