Finance police seized two luxury
homes from a couple accused of defrauding public coffers of 3.5
million euros in a work-voucher scam involving the man's
deceased mother, sources said Monday.
Giorgio Di Veroli, unemployed, and Cristina Mercuri, an
accountant, have been arrested on charges of defrauding INPS
social security and pensions fund using large quantities of the
10-euro work vouchers, which are used to pay for occasional
work.
Investigators say the couple purchased 700,000 euros' worth
of the vouchers in the name of Di Veroli's dead mother, and used
them to pay for non-existent work carried out by the 253
employees of 33 contractors, most of them bankrupt or in
liquidation.
The "employees" cashed the vouchers in and returned most of
the money to their "employers", minus a small fee for their
trouble.
The "employees" included the old and the young, Italians
and foreign residents, and sometimes entire families. One of
them, however, didn't like what was going on and turned them in
to police.
Among the assets seized are an apartment overlooking
Milan's Duomo cathedral and one in the seaside resort of Santa
Margherita Ligure near Genoa.
About 1.4 million people were paid in work vouchers in
2015, earning an average of 633 euros a year, according to a
labour ministry report out in March. In February, INPS reported
that over 115 million work vouchers were sold in 2015, or
66.1% more than in 2014.
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