Finance police arrested two
employees of Palermo's public water utility AMAP on Thursday,
following a fraud investigation totaling 910,000 euros.
AMAP office director Carlo Fasetti and AMAP employee Carmelo
Di Bella are accused of entering the company's database over a
period of five years, to falsify water bill payments and pocket
the money.
"Once again we're reminded of the fragility of computerized
systems for managing billing," Palermo prosecutor Leonardo
Agueci said in a press conference.
Finance police said that other employees may be involved in
the fraud, and some who had cooperated with authorities received
"folkloristic" threats, including hearses with caskets being
sent to their homes to "pick up the body" and flower bouquets
with severed goats' heads.
"It leads us to believe that the level of criminal intention
here might be so elevated as to involve possible criminal
organizations capable of those acts, something which is
disturbing and which we're trying to shed light on," said
assistant prosecutor Dino Petralia.
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