The beneficiaries of the disguised amnesty which is article 19 bis (the 3%) are the Aleottis. The decree would serve the patrons of Menarini srl, close to Renzi, while B. wants to change Severino. Verdi's role
by Marco Palombi – 3 February 2015 Il Fatto Quotidiano
This thing was born in Florence”. Thus, behind the guarantee of anonymity, a government source recounts the genesis of the notorious article 19 bis of the decree implementing the tax delegation, the one that cancels the crimes of tax evasion and fraud if the stolen goods are less than 3% of the turnover: the norm – which according to Fatto Quotidiano also worries the Public Prosecutor of Florence – would serve to close the trial that opened a year ago against the top management of Menarini, a pharmaceutical giant with 16,000 employees worldwide, an estimated turnover of 3.36 billion in 2014 and headquarters in Tuscan capital.
The owner of the group – which now also owns 1 per cent of Mps, after rising to 4 – is the Aleotti family: the progenitor Alberto died, at the helm (and on trial) are his children Lucia and Giovanni, president and vice.
Relations with the former mayor and those with the former Knight
Obviously official confirmations on the genesis of article 19 bis do not exist (apart from the Prime Minister's admission to the Fact on the positive opinions received from "great lawyers"), but the relationship between Matteo Renzi and the pharmaceutical group is an indisputable piece of news: Lucia Aleotti, to say, in March was among the few invited by the premier to his first meeting in Berlin with Angela Merkel (the others were Giorgio Squinzi, Fulvio Conti of Enel, and Mario Greco of Generali).
On the other hand, Menarini knows how to cultivate relationships: when Renzi was president, the company signed a protocol with the province of Florence and donated over 600 computers to schools and voluntary associations; when he was mayor Menarini financed the recovery of some public housing apartments. More significant, perhaps, is the fact that the very Renzian entrepreneur Fabrizio Landi – appointed to the Board of Directors of Finmeccanica – also sits on the board of three companies in the Aleotti group: Menarini Diagnostics, Firma and Silicon Biosystem. Relations between Menarini and politics, however, are a sort of tradition: even with the government of Silvio Berlusconi there were more than frequent contacts.
For example, in the records of the Florentine investigation into Menarini - in addition to continuous meetings with the then ministers Scajola, Fazio, Fitto, Matteoli, Sacconi and a dinner with the former Cavaliere - there is also a telephone call between Alberto Aleotti and Gianni Letta : the entrepreneur asks for reassurance on an amendment and the undersecretary replies that he will take care of it (“I'll have the president say it to Scajola in Moscow”).
The process started a year ago: damage to health for 860 million
Going back to the tax decree, the top management of Menarini would have an excellent reason to rejoice if it passed with article 19 bis: a trial underway in Florence since last February in which even Palazzo Chigi has filed a civil action (by an amusing coincidence the did on February 22, the day before the Renzi government took office).
The accusation against the company is heavy: having inflated – through a deception and for almost thirty years (from 1984 to 2010) – the price of some drugs, accumulating black funds in the meantime. Lucia and Giovanni Aleotti, in particular, are accused of having participated in this system invented by their father by moving the money to 900 current accounts in the name of 130 foreign companies until they took advantage of the two Tremonti tax shields in 2003 and 2009. A corroborated story, they say the prosecutors, by some suspects who have already negotiated the sentence.
For the prosecutor Alberto Aleotti (the father) in this way he would have "procured an unfair profit of not less than 575 million euros, with consequent huge damage to the National Health Service of not less than 860 million". The size of the disputed fraud is monstrous: 1.2 billion euros (the Cassation, however, said no to preventive seizure). Finally, Lucia Aleotti is also accused of bribing former PDL senator Cesare Cursi.
The torments of the Sultan of Arcore: "That law is not for me"
Curiously, sources very close to Silvio Berlusconi also confirm the reading that the beneficiary of the disguised amnesty that is article 19 bis are the Aleottis (it is certain, in any case, that almost all Italian banks would have something to celebrate).
According to this version, Denis Verdini – by now one of Renzi's main collaborators – was informed of the matter, but would have contributed to making the former Cavaliere believe that that provision was meant for him: "Berlusconi was put in the middle, but he needs that stuff little by little: by now he has served his sentence and in fact he continues to ask only for the non-retroactivity of the Severino law on ineligibility, so as to be able to race in 2016”. Instead, they say from the magic circle, the prime minister and Verdini insist on waving the 3% "save-Silvia" bait in front of their eyes. If true, it would only confirm that sunsets can be very melancholy.
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