Non-existent or unpaid fines and ‘inflated’ costs of damage to cars: it was the mechanism of an alleged fraud against foreigners activated by a car rental agency in Syracuse, also based in Catania airport. It is the charge of the Public Prosecutor of the Aretusean capital brought against the two partners and the administrative manager of the company who have been reported for material falsehood and aggravated fraud.
At the center of the investigation are the investigations by the local police of Catania launched after the complaint, in March 2020, of two Polish tourists of the charge by the car rental company for violations of the Highway Code never committed. In reality, the two ‘reports’, apparently issued by the local police themselves, turned out to have been artfully forged. The investigation, which also made use of the collaboration of the Syracuse postal police, showed that from 2018 to 2019 the company, against 10 thousand euros in car repair costs, allegedly withheld around 150 thousand euros from customers’ credit cards. The ‘gain’ from the alleged fraud, the indictment disputes, would have been shared between partners and employees. The investigators also discovered cases in which the customer had been forced to pay the real fines: the first to the car rental company, which withheld the money by merely reporting the name of the ‘offender’, and then when the second report arrived. With this technique, the Syracuse prosecutor disputes, the company would have collected around 15 thousand euros
Source: Ansa
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