A 13 million euro scam. in Court eight suspects parade

An employee who manages to get almost 13 million euros out of his company's coffers. And that once discovered, summoned by his superiors to justify his actions, he replies that he must first go and collect his children from school. "I will be right back". And it is no longer seen. These are the salient elements of the scam suffered between 2000 and 2004 by General Vending spa of Solbiate Olona, ​​a leading company in the production of coffee and snack vending machines.

Today, one of the last hearings of the trial was held in the court of Busto Arsizio involving the last eight people under investigation for fraud. They would have been the ones to help Mauro Pompeo Bonfanti, at the time administrative officer of the company, to launder the money stolen from the company. Prosecutor Nadia Calcaterra has asked for a 5-year prison sentence for Mario Maggi, considered to be responsible for laundering the stolen money. For two other defendants, the request was for four years. A fine of 10,000 euros for all three. About twenty people were involved in this process. More than half chose an alternative rite.

For the other five accused in trial, the prosecutor has asked for acquittal. The civil party lawyer Fabrizio Busignani then asked for compensation for the damage, quantified at 12 million euros. With a forecast of six million to be paid immediately. On the part of the defendants' lawyers, who yesterday began their defense arguments, the crime would not be that of money laundering, but of fraud. Crime that, more than seven years after the events, would already be time-barred.

Between 2000 and 2004, M. P. Bonfanti fabricated bogus bank receipts made out to compliant companies and, thanks to possession of General's remote banking codes, authorized the payments of the reba themselves. In summary, Bonfanti issued and made the company for which he worked pay accounts in the name of other companies involved in the game, which however had never provided services of any kind to the Solbiatese spa. He returns to court at the beginning of May.