(ANSA) - Milan, July 6 - Eleven people linked to firms that won contracts for Milan Expo 2015 were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of crimes including tax fraud, money laundering and criminal association for mafia, ANSA sources said. A lawyer was among the suspects arrested.
The Dominus Scarl consortium of cooperatives, specialised in setting up stands, is at the centre of the investigation. Dominus Scarl did work for the Fiera di Milano trade fair centre, which awarded it subcontracts for several Expo pavilions, including those of France and Equatorial Guinea. A Milan court also ordered that Nolostand spa, a company belonging to the Fiera di Milano group, be put into the hands of administrator. The companies involved alleged used a system of false invoices to create slush funds. The money was then laundered in Sicily, where suspects allegedly had contacts with the Pietraperzia Cosa Nostra clan. Finance police are conducting the preventative seizure of assets worth five million euros, sources said.
Milan Prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said Wednesday that the probe over alleged mafia infiltration of contracts for Expo 2015 showed that Sicily's Cosa Nostra is active in the northern region of Lombardy.
"It's important because it shows that infiltration this time of Cosa Nostra, not the (Calabria-based) 'Ndrangheta," she said. Boccassini said that Giuseppe Nastasi, the head of the consortium of cooperatives at the centre of the probe, allegedly had "links to important clans such as members of the Accardo family". She said prosecutors would request an immediate trial for the suspects, without going through a preliminary hearings judge. She also said that the probe had uncovered nothing of criminal relevance regarding the Milan Expo or Milan trade fair companies.