15 cited for mafia COVID funding fraud

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 24 - Italian police on Tuesday cited 15 businessmen and other linked to organized crime in a huge COVID-19 mafia funding fraud based in the northern city of Monza.
    The suspected mafia-linked gang managed to unduly get its hands on large amounts of funds earmarked for COVID aid, police said.
    The 15, all living in the Brianza area north of Milan, were reported by the Monza tax police for unduly receiving the virus emergency aid funds.
    Among them, two were reported for unduly obtaining and using guaranteed bank loans.
    One of them obtained the funds as legal representative of a business subject to an anti-mafia interdiction order and despite the presence, in the family of a majority partner, of a person convicted for mafia-type criminal association. (ANSA).