Banca Etruria premises searched

(ANSA) - Florence, May 9 - Finance police on Monday searched the Banca Etruria premises, seizing paperwork connected to the placement of its own subordinated bonds.
    The lender is currently in receivership.
    Arezzo prosecutors investigating possible wrongdoing in connection with the bonds said bank management instructed its investment advisors to sell the bonds to "retail clients who did not have a suitable financial profile for such investments, which would normally have been proposed to professional clients possessing the necessary skills to...correctly evaluate the risks they were taking".
    Some clients were even encouraged to disinvest from their fixed-income portfolios in order to purchase the Etruria bonds, which were being touted as safe.
    Several former managers including the father of Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi are being probed for suspected mismanagement in the bank's failure, which left small investors holding worthless paper - one of whom committed suicide.
    Banca Etruria is one of four failed banks that were rescued by the government last year. The others are Banca Marche, Cassa di Risparmio di Chieti (CariChieti) and Cassa di Risparmio di Ferrara (CariFe). The government has unveiled a compensation package but some former bondholders are unhappy with it.
    The suspects could face charges of conspiracy to commit aggravated fraud.
    Civitavecchia prosecutors, meanwhile, are probing the suicide of former Banca Etruria bondholder Luigi D'Angelo, who killed himself after losing over 100,000 euros.
    The probe is into suspected fraud and instigation to suicide.