A notary, an accountant and some administrators are involved in the investigation conducted by the Financial Police and coordinated by the Catanzaro Prosecutor’s Office which this morning brought the lawyer and former FI parliamentarian Giancarlo Pittelli under house arrest. The suspects are accused, for various reasons, of fraudulent bankruptcy, unauthorized access to a computer system and undue compensation.
The Catanzaro Prosecutor’s Office had requested the precautionary measure of arrest in prison against Pittelli alone. The investigating judge Chiara Esposito ordered the house arrest. The request was signed by the prosecutors of the DDA Irene Crea, Annamaria Frustaci, Antonio De Bernardo and Andrea Buzzelli and by the then prosecutor Nicola Gratteri – now head of the Naples prosecutor’s office – as the story emerged from the fold of the maxi investigation against the ‘Ndrangheta Rinascita Scott.
THE NAMES
In addition to Pittelli, the following are under investigation:
Francesco Saverio Nitti, accountant (Lauria, 02.24.1968)
Salvatore Domenico Galati, sole director of the company At Alberghiera Turistica srl (Vibo, 04.25.1967)
Monica Albano, sole director of the company At Alberghiera Turistica srl (Catanzaro, 14.05.1979)
Caterina Concolino, sole director of the company At Alberghiera Turistica srl (Naples, 18.03.1959)
Rita Tirinato, sole director of the Sarusi srl company (Catanzaro, 01.19.1961)
Antonio Marchio, liquidator of At Alberghiera Turistica srl (Catanzaro, 04.20.1989)
Sebastiano Panzarella, notary (Lamezia, 03.24.1969).
The Stalettì land and the never-built hotel
The matter concerns a building plot in the municipality of Stalettì on which a tourist facility was supposed to be built. The land was owned by the At Alberghiera company of which, according to the prosecution, the lawyer Pittelli was the de facto director and sole shareholder. In 2018 the company was in liquidation and, despite the existence of a debt of 1,043,852.97 euros with the Calabria Region (deriving from the advance of a public contribution obtained in 2005), the plot was sold to the Sarusi srl company , created ad hoc, according to the investigators, and also attributable to Pittelli.
Debt to the Region: another case of bankruptcy
Another disputed bankruptcy case concerns the failure to request the repayment of a credit of over 800 thousand euros claimed by the bankrupt company At Alberghiera from another company, Cromar Immobiliare srl, which was also later declared bankrupt, despite presence of a debt towards the Calabria Region of over one million euros deriving from the advance of a public contribution obtained in 2005 for the construction of a hotel complex on the seized land, a loan which was then renounced and never repaid.
The hidden accounting books and the seizure
Furthermore, Pittelli, Galati, Albano and Concolino would have destroyed or hidden the books and other accounting records so as not to make it possible to reconstruct the assets and business movements. The preventive seizure of approximately 77 thousand euros was ordered against the liquidator of At Alberghiera, Antonio Marchio, in relation to the hypothesized crime of undue compensation of VAT debt. The investigating judge ordered two seizures against the At Alberghiera company, relating to two different cases of fraudulent bankruptcy: 650 thousand euros and 824 thousand euros, for a total of 1,474,404.54 euros.