A seizure which in total is around two and a half million euros with the former rector of the University of Messina Salvatore Cuzzocrea accused of embezzlement. It is the sensational turning point in the investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office directed by Antonio D’Amato into the “refund case” which in October 2023 overwhelmed the then rector of the Peloritano university, leading to his early resignation. On the “refund case”, in November 2024 the Prosecutor’s Office – the investigation by the Financial Police is coordinated by the deputy Rosa Raffa with the deputies Liliana Todaro and Roberta La Speme – had asked the investigating judge, who had granted them, another six months to investigate further. Also because some international rogatory letters were underway. Now the investigation has come to a conclusion.
The investigation made it possible to reveal a sophisticated mechanism through which the former Rector allegedly misappropriated funds intended for the University’s scientific research. So, at present, multiple hypotheses of embezzlement have been contested, as the former Rector, in his capacity as public official and scientific manager of numerous research projects entrusted, by private bodies or financed by public bodies, to the “ChiBioFaram” Department of the local University, appropriated large sums of money, using, for the purposes of reimbursement of expenses, artificial, inflated or not inherent accounting documentation to the same scientific research projects, formally conducted in four-year period 2019-2023.
One case, that of scientific projects carried out and subject to reimbursement even by pharmaceutical companies, which was raised with his complaints by the trade unionist Paolo Todaro, who among other things is an employee of the Polyclinic. The first phase of the investigation, just to give an example, even ascertained supplies of material to the company Divaga srl, a company owned by Cuzzocrea himself and his wife, which manages the family’s riding school in Viagrande, in the Catania area. Of which the teacher was obviously “dominus”, and who dealt with horses, the former magnificent’s passion. Supplies then reimbursed by the University.
The Financial Police went into action today to carry out the seizure, which has a dual purpose. When the magistrates had drawn up the international investigations and letters rogatory to trace a veritable flood of reimbursements between Italy, Switzerland, America and even Israel, they had asked the investigating judge for the former rector’s house arrest on the hypothesis of embezzlement, and at the same time a seizure “for equivalent” of one million six hundred thousand euros. The investigating judge has now rejected the request for house arrest for Cuzzocrea, therefore not even the so-called preventive interrogation was held, and has instead granted the request for seizure for embezzlement.
In the meantime, however, something else happened. After the scandal, the University of Messina had started a series of economic cross-checks, a so-called Audit. At the end of the investigations, the University sent the report to the Prosecutor’s Office, reporting a series of “critical issues”. And the Prosecutor’s Office has launched a second line of investigation into the direct assignments of the ChiBioFarAm department directed by Cuzzocrea in 2023, also hypothesizing embezzlement by the former rector. And in this second tranche of the investigation the prosecutors decided on a second emergency seizure of 860 thousand euros. So overall, between the seizure “for equivalent” decided by the investigating judge of one million and 600 thousand euros and the emergency one ordered by the Prosecutor’s Office for 860 thousand euros, we arrive at the total sum of two and a half million euros.
Among the various irregularities found: the presentation of tax receipts relating to purchases made, mainly, for personal expenses; the request for reimbursement of missions carried out, allegedly, for research activities, but which coincided with the presence of the former Rector at equestrian events. As regards reimbursements justified by the presentation of receipts, it emerged that the purchases concerned materials not relating to research activities (e.g. electrical, plumbing and construction material); the investigations conducted at the suppliers made it possible to reveal the real destination of the same materials, not for the benefit of the University, but for the agricultural company attributable to the former Rector.
Refunds and horse shows
Another of the significant expenditure items was found to be connected to the carrying out of self-declared missions on behalf of the University: in this case too, it emerged that a significant portion of the reimbursements requested, for missions, concerned travel, food and accommodation expenses, incurred by the former Rector and, in some cases, by further guests of his, in locations coinciding with those in which horse racing competitions had been held, in which the Rector himself appeared to have taken part. In this context, the reimbursement requests were also reconstructed, promptly invoiced, concerning the carrying out of photographic services, concerning, contrary to what was represented, photographic documentation of horse racing events, therefore not inherent to the research activity.
Finally, from the detailed examination of the current account movements, unusual accreditations emerged, deriving from bank transfers with the former Rector as the beneficiary, for a total of 210,000 euros, ordered by numerous researchers, part of the research group of the “ChioBioFarAm” Department of the University of Messina, with various reasons, such as, among others, the reimbursement for the purchase of laboratory material and plant maintenance, or advance laboratory expenses. The investigation activities have currently made it possible to exclude that there was any advance payment of expenses for the purchase of materials useful for research by the researchers, due to the non-attributable nature of the signatures submitting the reimbursement requests to the same researchers, despite the fact that they had been submitted in their name.
Funds for private purposes
A second and complementary line of investigation – which concerns the urgent preventive seizure ordered by the Public Prosecutor – arises from the transmission to the Judicial Authority, by the current top management of the University of Messina, of the results of the verification ordered by the “Extraordinary Audit Commission” appointed, by the Director General of the University itself, to carry out the checks relating to the legitimacy of n. 61 payment decrees issued by the “ChioBioFarAm” Department (Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences of the University of Messina). The internal control was aimed at verifying the conformity, with the regulations in force, of the procedures for direct assignment by the “ChiBioFaram Department”, between 24 January 2023 and 11 October 2023, to private companies or individual entrepreneurs, of supply of goods and services; also in this case the goods and services would have been provided, only formally, to the University to finance research projects, having, in reality, been diverted by the former Rector, for the benefit of the agricultural company referable to him (Divaga Agricultural Company srl): the investigative activities made it possible to reconstruct the illicit conduct of the former Rector, consisting in proposing the stipulation of assignment contracts for the disbursement of funds intended to finance university research projects of which he was the scientific director, funds that the same former Rector would have diverted, for private purposes, allocating them, mainly, to the construction of an important structure for equestrian activities (numerous riding fields and horse shelters), belonging to the agricultural company reported to him.