On 4 April 2023, in a case investigated and prosecuted by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in Milan (Italy), a judge of the Tribunal of Brescia convicted a public official of corruption.
The official was charged with having received bribes of €50 000 from a businessperson, with the purpose of softening or excluding the businessperson’s responsibilities, and those of some of his family members, from a criminal investigation.
The public official was a police officer of the Italian Financial Police (Guardia di Finanza), and an important member of the team that was carrying out an investigation into a large-scale VAT fraud, which was also coordinated by the EPPO’s office in Milan, in which the businessperson and his family members were suspects. The investigation into corruption revealed that the public official failed to provide the prosecutors with relevant evidence and information against those suspects. The investigation into the large-scale VAT fraud handled by the EPPO is still ongoing.
The judge sentenced the defendant to 5 years of imprisonment – taking into account a punishment reduction of one third, for having opted for an accelerated procedure. The judge also ordered the confiscation of €50 000 as proceeds of the crime, and the extended confiscation of additional property – believed to derive from criminal conduct – with a value of €473 775, having considered that the defendant could not justify the legitimate origin of these properties, the value of which was disproportionate to his lawful income and tax statements.
The investigation into corruption had been initially opened by the national public prosecutor’s office of Brescia. The case was then evoked by the EPPO, but the decision was challenged by the national prosecutor. The Italian Prosecutor General at the Court of Cassation decided that the EPPO correctly evoked the case in application of the EPPO Regulation, in the first and only case of conflict of competence between the EPPO and an Italian prosecutor’s office.
