Finance police on Friday acted
to execute 19 arrest warrants in relation to a probe into
alleged corruption at highways company ANAS.
Managers and officials at the company are implicated,
along with a lawyer, a politician and entrepreneurs whose firms
have won mayor public works contracts.
Friday's operation, involving searches of properties to
obtain evidence and over 250 police officers, is the second part
of an investigation that exploded in October into alleged
kickbacks paid by entrepreneurs to ANAS officials to win
contracts.
The politician under investigation is Marco Martinelli, a
53-year-old lawmaker for Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza
Italia (FI) party, sources said.
Martinelli allegedly guaranteed a businessman that a
tender commission would be headed by someone "not hostile" to
his bid for a contract in Sicily.
The finance police said 36 people were under
investigation in the second part of the probe, which uncovered
alleged "systematic" corruption.
The police said the corruption was not limited to
manipulating the awarding of tenders.
They said it also influenced the timing of payments, the
failure to apply target-related penalties and the payment of
damages for the dispossession of property.
A Rome preliminary investigations judge wrote that there
was evidence of widespread corruption at ANAS in the warrant for
Friday's arrest.
The second part of the probe largely stemmed from
Antonella Accroglianò, a manager nicknamed the 'black lady' who
admitted to being involved in a web of graft after being
implicated in the first part.
In a statement, ANAS thanked investigators for Friday's
operation and the help they are providing to enable the company
to "clarify its past and put in order and protest the healthy
part of the company, made up of the overwhelming majority of its
employees".
Former transport ministry undersecretary Luigi Meduri was
among a number of managers and officials arrested in the first
operation in October.
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