Top bank managers, RAI chairman involved in usury probe

(ANSA) - Trani, June 11 - Former Bank of Italy director and current chairman of State broadcaster RAI, Anna Maria Tarantola, and former Bank of Italy director general and ex-economy minister Fabrizio Saccomanni are among 62 people implicated in a probe into allegd usury at some of the country's biggest banks.
    Former and current top managers at BNL, Unicredit, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) and Banca popolare di Bari (BpB) have all been investigated in relation to the alleged application of usurious interest rates on certain loans, news of which emerged Tuesday. They include BNL Chairman Luigi Abete, Unicredit former CEO Alessandro Profumo - currently chairman at struggling MPS - and MPS former chairman Giuseppe Mussari and his deputy Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone.
    Prosecutors say the four banks involved in the probe allegedly applied the usurious rates from 2005 to 2012 with the "moral participation" of the then directors of Italy's central bank and of Giuseppe Maresca, a director at the ecomony ministry. The companies affected by the allegedly usurious rates are located in the province of Bari in Italy's southern Puglia region.
    Prosecutors say overall profits from the alleged usury run to the tune of 95,000 euros.