The mayor of the Calabrian town of Villa San Giovanni; the chairman and the chief executive officer of the roro and ferry shipping company Caronte&Tourist Spa, were among a dozen suspects arrested in an operation carried out by local police and anti-mafia investigators in Reggio Calabria, Italy.
Investigators believe that the managers promised money to local administrators in exchange for favors for Caronte&Tourists. In particular, the company’s managers and the mayor are accused of illicitly obtaining control over an area of land for a project.
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Namely, those arrested are accused of corruption; collusive tendering; aggravated fraud; embezzlement and one of them is also accused of external mafia association.
In March, Croatian police authorities arrested 12 people as part of investigations into a corruption scandal of financially distressed shipbuilder Uljanik, due to allegations of ‘abuse of trust in financial transactions’ and fraud. The country’s Ministry of the Interior said the police started investigations into Uljanik in September 2018. Officials assumed that the scheme cost the Croatian Government up to $150 million.
What is more, in June, The US District Court in Baltimore, the Department of Justice announced that an indictment of two Norwegian shipping executives was opened. The defendants were charged for participating in a long-running conspiracy to share certain customers and routes, rig bids, and fix prices for the sale of international ocean shipments of roll-on, roll-off cargo to and from the United States and elsewhere, including the Port of Baltimore.
