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The investigation of the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office on an alleged real estate operation by the Lombardia Film Commission foundation is expanding to the political relationships of the three main suspects -the accountants Arturo Maria Scillieri, Alberto Di Rubba and Andrea Manzoni- and an alleged system of illegal management League funds through complacent bank managers.
Scillieri, Di Rubba and Manzoni, investigated since July, were arrested on September 10. The charges are embezzlement, alteration of freedom in the contractor election process, and fraudulent tax evasion. They are now under house arrest. Much has been said about his arrest and the investigation because the three consider themselves close to the League: both Di Rubba and Manzoni have a past as party auditors, one in the Chamber and the other in the Senate, while Scillieri is the owner of the studio where at the end of 2017 the “Lega per Salvini premier” movement was registered and domiciled.
The story in the research center concerns a shed in Cormano, near Milan. In 2016, the accountant Scillieri entrusted two companies (Paloschi srl and Andromeda Real Estate) to what is suspected to be two front men, chosen to appear as directors while the companies were in fact managed by him. In February 2017, he wrote Daily factAndrómeda bought the shed for 400,000 euros, “with four checks that will never be cashed.” In November 2017, Paloschi srl was “canceled from the commercial register”.
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In December of the same year, the Lombardia Film Commission -which since May was looking for a new headquarters, to be paid with regional funds- bought the Cormano warehouse for 800,000 euros. At that time the president of the Lombardia Film Commission was Alberto Di Rubba, and Andrea Manzoni was his business partner. It is unclear why the Cormano property, sold by Andromeda and bought by LFC, doubled in value in just a few months. Therefore, the magistrates suspect that Di Rubba, Manzoni and Scillieri, with different responsibilities, defrauded the foundation by buying the property and then reselling it, appropriating the difference.
In the reasons for the request for house arrest, published by Republic, the prosecutor Stefano Civardi and the deputy prosecutor Eugenio Fusco write that -parallel to the main story of the purchase of the property in Cormano- the suspects have shown that they are capable of reaching “the highest levels of politics”, and therefore the risk of contaminating evidence would motivate house arrest.
According to the magistrates on May 26 and 27, in Rome, there was a “confidential meeting” with some politicians of the League, among them the secretary Matteo Salvini, of whom Manzoni speaks in an interception. At the interception, reported by Republic, Manzoni would have said: “There was a meeting with … with Salvini, then I did not stop there to speak with Calderoli, but he called me (…) because since Tuesday in Rome, he has made me meet on Tuesday morning, all the political secretaries meet. ”According to the magistrates, the reason for the meeting was the request of Manzoni and Di Rubba to get the leaders of the League to press for“ a docile branch manager ”of the Ubi bank in Seriate ( in the province of Bergamo) is reinstated after dismissal.
The former manager of the Ubi branch in Seriate, whose name is Marco Ghilardi, had been fired for failing to report the suspicious operations of Di Rubba and Manzoni. Ghilardi is not being investigated, but he was heard as a witness and according to the newspapers he admitted to being aware of the unclear operations of Di Rubba and Manzoni. Ghilardi told the magistrates that they were “operations without valid economic reasons” and that “in hindsight I must admit that Di Rubba lied to me to achieve his objectives.” He always spoke to me of a non-profit association, with cultural purposes, completely disconnected from the political world. In fact, significant amounts of bank transfers have also passed through this account, due to banking practices incompatible with the associative nature. According to Corriere della SeraAlso as a consequence of this new line of investigations, the magistrates are about to ask the three defendants to proceed with the “immediate” rite, that is, to skip the preliminary hearing and go immediately to trial.
However, according to the magistrates, Ghilardi’s would not be an isolated case. According to what you write Republic There could be other bank directors in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto who have raised and managed Lega funds on behalf of Di Rubba and Manzoni, although no further details are known for now and there are no new suspects.
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As for the main trend, according to the indictment, it was Di Rubba who planned the deal for the purchase of the headquarters of the Lombardy Film Commission, when he was president of the institution, from 2014 to 2018. Monday, September 14, the former Lombardy councilor To the Culture at the time of the purchase of the property in Cormano, the player of the Northern League Cristina Cappellini, heard as a witness by the magistrates, said that Di Rubba would have been chosen in that position for being “a man of strict confidence in Salvini “. Also on Monday, a fourth investigated, Luca Sostegni, arrested in July while trying to leave for Brazil and accused of being one of the front men in the Cormano warehouse business, questioned about the nature of Scillieri’s relations with the League, told the magistrates that in 2014, the Lega decided to entrust the sale of the party’s historic Milanese headquarters in via Bellerio to Scillieri.
In those years, the League was going through great financial difficulties, as a result of the scandals over public funds that led to the resignation and conviction of then-secretary Umberto Bossi and then-treasurer Francesco Belsito. That story is also part of this story: in the coming days the Milan magistrates will meet in Genoa with their colleagues who are trying to find the 49 million euros of public funding for the “disappeared” League, and that the party has been condemned to indemnify. .
Second Republic the magistrates and the Guardia di Finanza of Genoa are investigating an interception, acquired in the investigation “Breakfast” by the Directorate of the Antimafia District of Reggio Calabria, from which arises the suspicion that the League in 2013 tried to create a trust to empty the party checking accounts in case judicial inquiries were opened – as happened later – and the 49 million public funds transferred elsewhere. The report of the interception had been kept secret, but the magistrates investigating the Lombardia Film Commission decided to acquire it in the process of the investigation into the purchase of the Cormano property.
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