Fondi Lega, the accountant stopped the investigated businessman: “Could you even sell us the gels?” So they targeted the Covid business

How many businesses did the Lega’s accountants handle and how many entrepreneurs were involved? Day after day of the gigantic investigation file new interceptions and new possible crossovers arise in the investigation that led three accountants and the brother-in-law of one of them to house arrest for the sale considered “inflated” by the Milan prosecutor’s office of a cut warehouse Lombardy Film Commission. Thus, in an interception on March 18 Andrea Manzoni, former auditor of the Carroccio who yesterday before the investigating judge responded by rejecting the accusations, tells the businessman Francesco Barachetti, under investigation for competition in embezzlement, emblematic phrase. “Could you even sell us hand washing gels? (…) Do you know the gel that is in fashion now? (…) if you can control that (…) Cleaning, in my opinion, everyone starts to be more careful huh ”. Manzoni, according to the Guardia di Finanza researchers, “lets the entrepreneur glimpse” the profitability prospects underlying the profitable insertion in this market niche. ” “If you already think only of me and Alberto (Di Rubba, another detained accountant and former president of the Lombardy Film Commission, ed.), Between offices, ‘not only cars’ (…) now in the League, that is, you can see that the position is coming ”.

The two, the Yellow Flames researchers explain in the report, speak of “future work entrusted to the company by the Lega per Salvini premier political party and by other entities related to it, such as Radio Padania“. Manzoni also refers to” the recent acquisition, not officially identified at this time, of the cleaning and sanitation division “of a company by Barachetti,” as a necessary and sufficient condition for procure work in the premises attributable to the party“And he says to him:” In my opinion now we are going to make you do the sanitization, yesterday I was talking with Calderoli (…) it is a separate activity and completely unrelated to the construction activity. ” They introduced modifications in the social statute of Barachetti service srl and the activity of “cleaning, pest control, rodent control and civil and industrial sanitation” was also included. On the same day Manzoni tells Di Rubba: “Barachetti showed me what left on our desks some hand gel“.

The diligence of the entrepreneur, a native of Casnigo like Di Rubba, is understandable in light of the evolution of the business in the last 6 years. In 2014, the profit does not exceed 13 thousand euros, then major increases which exceed 93 thousand euros in 2017, 280 thousand in 2018 and 279 thousand last year. The income, therefore net of costs, is equally impressive: with more than 650 thousand euros in 2014 and 4 million and 400 thousand last year. The company deals with plumbing, construction and gardening, plant engineering, installation and sale of household appliances, recently also sanitation, and a major client at Carroccio. Barachetti is cited by financiers as “the usual supplier, in recent years, of the League and of the natural and legal persons linked to it.” The documents also reveal a personal purchase by Calderoli: home appliances for 83 thousand. Bankitalia, already in 2019, had reported payments to an account of the Casnigo company since Pontida End (Financial of the Northern League administered by Di Rubba), for 539 thousand euros in various installments through bank transfers. But there is also another payment made by the Carroccio for 31 thousand euros, with the inspection service that writes: “There are no transactions that allow identifying a specific use, not even partial, of the related funds”. Then another 269 thousand euros from the movement and again from the financier for 446 thousand. The mission of the researchers is to understand if these movements and transfers are the vehicle of a flow of money destined for who knows where. Without forgetting that it is the business of the businessman who, according to the researchers, raised about 260 thousand euros in the sale of the property in Cormano to reform: a property paid 800 thousand euros but whose value would have been half.

In a phone call on March 18, Manzoni told Barachetti: “As you can see, I am your sales agent.“. Manzoni, among other things a member of the Board of Auditors of the Health Protection Agency (Ats) of the Metropolitan City of Milan, deals with the” economic interests of Barachetti. “And in the period of the Covid emergency also promotes its “new cleaning and disinfection activity“, Made by Barachetti service srl also in the Lega headquarters in via Bellerio, as the interceptions show. In an interview on April 30, among other things, he asked: “Can you supply the masks that are in Bellerio? (…) Provide 1000 (…) all gels, gloves, masks are fine ”. For the financiers there is a “kind of organic identification of Manzoni with Barachetti’s business dynamics”, as well as to “personally promote the activity carried out by the latter.” Barachetti is a central figure in the investigations of the Milanese prosecutors who are also working on the alleged ‘black funds raised for the party with relegated money’.

But Barachetti may not have been the only businessman close to the Northern League accountants who shared an accusation. The researchers believe that there may be a pattern that is repeated with different protagonists and that is why all the reports that have come from the banking world and from bank directors for operations attributable to the League will be evaluated one by one with great attention. After the case of Marco Ghilardi, former director of the Ubi branch in Seriate, fired for not reporting anomalous transactions and according to an economic reason, there is a fear of getting into trouble.

Meanwhile, the papers show that the only component ofsupervisory body of the Lombardy Film Commission, at the time of the shed case he would have had financial relationships with investee companies or companies managed by the three accountants and by the treasurer of the Northern League Jules Centemero. The analysis of the “financial movements registered in the personal checking account” of Alessio Gennari, member of the SB of the Lombardy Film Commission (not investigated), “actually reflects the existence of active economic relations also with Di Rubba”, the former president of the entity, “which dates from May 2019”. In the course of the investigations, the annotation continues, “other elements indicative of the peculiar (economic) proximity of Gennari to Di Rubba and Manzoni have emerged.” Proximity “to companies that are attributable to them for various reasons”. Before and during assignment to Lombardy Film Commission, note the Fiamme Gialle, in 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2018, Gennari “received compensation (self-employment income) also from other companies attributable to people linked to the reference part (including Scillieri, Manzoni and Di Rubba) “. In 2012, in accordance with the law, it collected more than 7 thousand euros from Areapergolesi srl, a company of which Scillieri, Manzoni and Di Rubba were accounting custodians and Di Rubba, Manzoni, Giulio Centemero and Stefano Borghesi, Senator of the Northern League. In 2015 and 2016, Gennari’s wife also received around 2,400 euros from the same company. Then, for Gennari also 2,500 euros in 2014 from Geseco srl “of which Centemero was sole director” and in 2017 more than 6 thousand euros from Editoriale nord srl “of which Manzoni was liquidator”.