Italian far Right money-laundering scandal

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From ANSA news agency in Italy:

Scaglia steps down

Fastweb founder resigns in bid to avoid administration

29 March, 18:28

Rome, March 29 – Fastweb founder and ex-CEO Silvio Scaglia on Monday stepped down from the company’s board amid a probe into a suspected two-billion-euro VAT dodging and international money laundering scam.

Scaglia, 51, Italy’s 13th-richest man, has been in jail for three weeks and repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the alleged scam, which concerns suspicious operations during his last years at the helm of the company.

His lawyers said he had resigned to avert the threat of the company being placed under a court-appointed administrator.

In a resignation letter, Scaglia wished the company “a serene and positive development in its activities”. Some 56 people have been arrested in the probe including a Rome businessman with a far-right militant past, Gennaro Mokbel, the alleged ringleader, and a former right-wing Senator, Nicola Di Girolamo, who has resigned after being accused of election fraud involving the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta mafia.

Fastweb has removed two executives linked to the 2003-2006 suspected scam which allegedly involved a ‘merry-go-round’ of VAT transactions on phone services involving offshore shell companies.

It has said it severed ties to other suspects in 2007, when Scaglia sold his majority stake to Swisscom.

Another telecoms company, Telecom Italia’s Sparkle Web TV unit, has also taken steps to avoid being placed under an administrator.

It is to be hoped that that other Silvio will follow Scaglia’s example soon …

From IT News:

Perhaps the most colourful of [Eugene] Gourevitch‘s alleged associates, among the 55 others for whom Judge Morgigni issued arrest warrants two weeks ago, is Gennaro Mokbel, the son of an Egyptian military officer and Italian mother. Mokbel is alleged to have used contacts in the Calabrian mafia, known as the ‘ndrangheta, to get a friend fraudulently elected to the Senate.

With alleged connections to right-wing extremists, including two terrorists convicted for the 1980 bombing of a Bologna railway station, and allegedly protected by corrupt officers in the finance police, Mokbel reportedly invested some of his illegal profits in African diamonds and works of art by major modern Italian artists. His collection reportedly included photographs and memorabilia of wartime leaders Benito Mussolini and Adolph Hitler.

See also here.

According to Wikipedia, Nicola di Girolamo was originally in Fini’s neo-fascist party, and joined Berlusconi’s PDL party when the MSI merged with that party.

Italian elections: here.

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