The Ligresti family moved some
16.7 million euros to Switzerland in stocks and cash during
probes into their insurer Fonsai, according to tax police who
alerted the economy ministry and the Bank of Italy to a Milan
unit.
The firm should have communicated the transfers, police
said.
In July the entire Ligresti family was arrested in a graft
probe and in November family patriarch, veteran financier and
insurance magnate Salvatore Ligresti went on trial for alleged
corruption along with former insurance watchdog Giancarlo
Giannini.
Former Fonsai insurance giant boss Ligresti, 82, is charged
with trying to get Giannini named antitrust watchdog, a higher
job, in exchange for lax controls by insurance authority ISVAP
(now IVASS) on his business empire.
The case "shows the extent of the two men's attempted
corrupt power swap," prosecutors said at the time.
Insurance magnate Ligresti allegedly contacted ex-premier
Silvio Berlusconi, while he was in office, as part of an
attempted arrangement to ease ISVAP oversight.
The appointment to the antitrust authority was to take
place at the end of Giannini's mandate as ISVAP chief,
prosecutors say.
Prosecutor Luigi Orsi claimed that Giannini, in exchange,
saw to it that the insurance regulator was "inefficient and
slow" in its oversight of Fonsai.
Giannini and Ligresti are both accused of corruption in the
probe into alleged accounting fraud and market manipulation at
the troubled Italian insurance group.
No information indicating legal trouble for Berlusconi has
been revealed in the case.
Four other suspects, including Fonsai manager Emanuele
Erbetta and Ligresti's s daughters, Jonella and Giulia, have
been implicated.
The group are accused of involvement in accounting
irregularities that enabled Ligresti, according to the
indictment, to acquire illegal dividends of 200 million euros.
The Ligresti family are the former majority owners of the
Fonsai and Milano Assicurazioni insurance companies.
Salvatore Ligresti has long been one of Italy's most
influential businessmen with stakes in a slew of leading banks
and companies.
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