Rome finance police carry out search op in corruption probe

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 15 - Rome finance police have searched the offices and homes of public officials and companies over a corruption probe related to calls for tender in the telecommunications and computer sectors by State-owned technology company Sogei Spa , the ministries of interior and security, the State attorney's office in the Italian capital said on Tuesday. The companies involved in the search operation included Digital Value Spa and Olidata Spa.
    Overall, 18 people and 14 companies are under investigation on corruption and auction rigging charges.
    Late on Monday, a manager at Sogei was arrested together with an entrepreneur as part of the investigation coordinated by Rome State attorneys.
    The two men were caught red handed by finance police while exchanging 15,000 euros and the money was seized by security officials, investigative sources said.
    Finance police said the "corruption system" discovered had "ramifications both within the ministry of the defence, as well as in Sogei and finally in the ministry of interior", according to court documents on the investigation that led to the search operations carried out on Tuesday.
    In wiretapped conversations involving the entrepreneur arrested Monday together with the director general of Sogei, Paolino Iorio, "contacts emerged along with meetings" with an official who was "later identified as an Italian Navy captain", investigators said.
    The first contacts revealed that the captain, who was involved in a contract, had asked for money and for a person to be hired by "one of the companies managed by the entrepreneurs" involved in the probe, according to the State attorney's documents that led to the operation on Tuesday. (ANSA).