A finance police operation in the northwestern Italian province of Imperia uncovered a criminal scheme in the management of migrant reception centers that police said illegally took in 1.3 million euros. Wiretaps reveal that in order to optimize costs, migrants were fed "food that people probably wouldn't feed their cats."
Finance police in the northwestern Italian province of Imperia carried out four arrest warrants as well as preventive asset seizures following an investigation into fraud in the management of migrant reception centers in the province.
The four suspects were taken into pretrial detention in prison on charges of criminal association to commit fraud against the state and money laundering. Ten other suspects are currently under investigation, including a former employee of the Imperia prefecture.
The probe involves two migrant reception centers hosting more than 120 migrants, both managed by a Piedmont cooperative.
Prominent attorney among those arrested
A prominent Turin attorney was among those arrested, as well as the manager of the social cooperative that managed the two centers. The cooperative, Caribù, is headquartered in the province of Cuneo. The manager's girlfriend and sister were also arrested. The attorney, the manager, and his girlfriend are accused of criminal association to commit fraud, while the sister is accused of money laundering with others.
1.3 million in revenue from fraud
Finance police said the suspects defrauded the state government of 1.3 million euros out of a total of 1.7 million euros of public funding disbursed. The investigation started in 2017 and looked into the appropriation of funds from the prefecture for the daily management of the migrants. The fraud consisted of communicating a higher daily number of migrants in the centers than the actual number, as well as overbilling costs that were only partially incurred to provide services to the migrants as set forth in the public tender.
Migrants 'treated like beasts'
Prosecutor Grazia Pradella said one of the methods the suspects used to save money was labor exploitation and said the migrants were treated in an unacceptable way both physically and psychologically. "In the arrest warrant, the judge wrote that the migrants were treated like beasts," Pradella said. "We have wiretaps in which the suspects quibbled over the type of food to give the migrants and settled on giving lungs and offal - food that people probably wouldn't even feed their cats - in order to optimize costs," she said. "Those who tried to rebel were beaten and humiliated and we have evidence of this in a wiretap," she said.