In the early hours of the morning, the Carabinieri of the Provincial Command of Milan - in the Provinces of Milan, Lodi, Brescia, Varese and Messina - carried out a Custody Ordinance under house arrest, issued by the GIP of the Court of Milan at the request of the DDA of the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, against the Mayor and the manager of the Technical Office of the Municipality of Opera (MI) and three entrepreneurs in the construction sector, held responsible - for various reasons - for embezzlement, corruption for an act contrary to duties ex officio, disturbed freedom of the procedure for choosing the contractor and waste trafficking.
The investigation - coordinated by the Deputy Prosecutors, Alessandra Dolci and Maurizio Romanelli, and by the Deputies Silvia Bonardi and Stefano Civardi, and conducted by the Investigative Unit of Milan - was launched in February 2020 to shed light on alleged offenses committed by the aforementioned administration municipal. The investigations thus revealed how, in the period February - October 2020, the First Citizen of Opera, with the unconditional support of the manager of the Technical Office and the compliance of some officials and consultants of the Organization, systematically interfered in some tender procedures banned by that Municipality to guide the assignment of public works in favor of conniving entrepreneurs, receiving substantial benefits from the latter.
In this context, serious criminal environmental conduct carried out by the same entrepreneurs investigated through storage, reuse and burial - in construction site areas in the Municipality of Opera and in agricultural areas within the Parco Sud of Milan have also been documented. - of about one thousand tons of asphalt and other material coming from road works and other interventions contracted by the Municipalities of Opera, Locate di Triulzi, San Zenone al Lambro, Segrate, Monza, falsely certifying the regular recovery of the aforementioned special waste through Ideologically false "forms" obtained by the managers of two disposal centers, the latter being investigated on the loose.
It was also ascertained that the Mayor of Opera, in the first months of the pandemic, arbitrarily distributed to close relatives and municipal employees about 2000 surgical masks that the Metropolitan City and the Civil Protection had assigned to the local nursing homes and municipal pharmacy.
During the operation, a disqualification measure was also notified to a Brescia architect consultant to the Municipality of Opera and a preventive seizure decree of 40 thousand euros (price of corruption) against the public officials under investigation, as well as two trucks used in the commission of environmental crimes.