Finance police on Monday executed
warrants issued by a Rome court to arrest two dozen people in
relation to a probe into alleged tax fraud, corruption and money
laundering, among other crimes, ANSA sources said.
Antonio Marotta, an MP for the centrist Area Popolare (AP)
group, is under investigation in relation to the corruption
probe and so is Giuseppe Pizza, education undersecretary in
Silvio Berlusconi's third and final government from 2008 to
2011.
Pizza's brother Raffaele Pizza, was among the people
arrested on Monday.
Raffaele Pizza is said to be a middle-man/fixer with
strong links to the political world and contacts with many
people at the helm of publicly controlled companies. He is
suspected of being at the centre of a ring of kickbacks, sources
said.
Police said Raffaele Pizza "exploited stable links with
influential political men, often holders of very high
institutional positions".
The finance police said that they suspect Raffaele Pizza
used a studio near the parliament to "receive money from illegal
origins, hide it and sort it" and in one case had the help of a
lawmaker.
Investigators said they uncovered transfers for a total 10
million euros justified by false invoices to dodge tax and
create slush funds to be used for illegal activities.
Giuseppe Pizza, who is suspected of money laundering, is
the secretary of a small new Christian Democratic party and is
the owner of the historic cross symbol of the once-dominant
Catholic party, which was felled by the Tangentopoli bribes
scandal of the early 1990s.
A preliminary investigations judge rejected a request from
prosecutors to arrest Marotta, the sources said.
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