Tax police no.2 probed for 'corruption'

(updates previous) (ANSA) - Naples, June 11 - The second-highest-ranking officer in Italy's tax police was put under investigation Wednesday, reportedly for alleged corruption. The news was revealed as investigators searched the offices of General Vito Bardi at finance guard headquarters in Rome. He is part of the same probe in which a Livorno tax police commander, Fabio Massimo Mendella, was arrested earlier Wednesday. A Neapolitan accountant, Pietro De Riu, was also arrested as a result of that investigation, on suspicion of taking bribes of over one million euros from people wanting to avoid tax inspections on behalf of Mendella when he worked in the province of Naples between 2006 and 2012.
    As for Bardi, it is not the first time he has been investigated. In 2011 investigators probed the general for alleged aiding and abetting and disclosing State secrets in an influence-peddling case known as the P4 affair.
    The following year his case was closed at the request of prosecutor Henry John Woodcock, the same prosecutor who ordered the search of his offices on Wednesday. At the center of the P4 case was Alfonso Papa, a former MP in ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party currently on trial for alleged conspiracy. According to prosecutors Papa received classified information about ongoing investigations and used it to blackmail businessmen who gave him bribes.