A judicial earthquake has hit the Municipality of Venice. In a corruption investigation, linked to the sale of public lands and municipal buildings, the mayor of the city, Luigi Brugnaro, was investigated, along with two officials of his cabinet, Morris Ceron, and Derek Donadini.
In the same investigation by the Guardia di Finanza, but in a different vein, the municipal councilor for mobility Renato Boraso was arrested. Also in jail is the building contractor Fabrizio Ormenese.
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ANSA Agency Who is Renato Boraso, Councilor of the Municipality of Venice – News – Ansa.it (HANDLE) Seven other municipal officials and officials of public companies were placed under house arrest, including the municipal transport company Actv. Six other suspects have been banned from holding public office for 12 months. There are 18 suspects in total; among them the general manager of Actv, Giovanni Seno, and the head of the procurement sector, Fabio Cacco. A storm, in terms of its proportions and political scope, second only to the investigation into the Mose procurement, which 10 years ago led to 35 arrests in the lagoon.
In Boraso, former Forza Italia member who passed under the banner of the ‘Brugnaro list’ and in Coraggio Italia – a movement founded by Brugnaro together with Giovanni Toti – the Venice Public Prosecutor’s Office is accusing him of 11 episodes of corruption, extortion and self-laundering: events from 2015 to today including the underselling of Palazzo Papadopoli, which also involves the mayor Luigi Brugnaro and his cabinet chief Morris Ceron in another strand. According to the prosecution, Boraso, at the time councilor for Heritage, allegedly had 73,200 euros delivered to him by the emissaries of the Singaporean magnate Chiat Kwong Ching, with invoices to his company “Stella consulting” for non-existent consultancy, in 2017 and 2018; figures then passed on to two of his other companies. “He systematically commodified his public function, selling it off to private interests”, says the investigating judge. And in a wiretap the mayor warns him: “You don’t listen to me, you don’t understand a thing… They’re asking me why you ask for money, you don’t realize, you’re risking too much… If I tell you to be careful, you have to control yourself.”
For Brugnaro, Ceron and Donadini, the case under investigation is that of the Pili area, bought by the entrepreneur of ‘Umana’ when he was not yet in politics, for only 5 million, then a development area, for which Brugnaro had started a negotiation (later failed) always with Chiat Kwong Ching. Four and a half hectares of land, polluted by the Marghera works, ended up under the control of ‘Porta di Venezia’, always headed by Brugnaro, but with “de facto manager” – writes the Prosecutor’s Office – the deputy chief of staff in the Municipality Derek Donadini. Since 2017 it has also been in the hands of the New York law blind trust created by the mayor to fend off accusations of conflict of interest. It is precisely on the mechanisms of the blind trust that the Gdf is investigating. Brugnaro, Ceron and Donadini, it is written in the order, “agreed with Ching to pay a price of 150 million euros in exchange for the promise to approve the doubling of the building permit and the adoption of the urban planning variations necessary for the approval of the building project”.
Brugnaro says he is “astonished” and adds: “I know I have always carried out and will continue to carry out the role of mayor as a service to the community, free of charge, always putting public interests first”. And on the Pili he specifies: “That is an area that has already been buildable since before my administration”.
However, according to the magistrates, the same Brugnaro, Ceron and Donadini, in a meeting in Venice “agreed with Ching the sale of the municipal building Palazzo Papadopoli at a price of over 10 million euros, less than the value of 14 million… and this in order to facilitate negotiations with Ching for the sale of the Pili lands, owned by Brugnaro”.
Reduction in the value of the property actually occurred, through “acts contrary to the duties of office carried out by Brugnaro, Ceron and Donadini, who acted on behalf of the first”.
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Source: Ansa
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