Seventy people are under investigation, including officers and top officials of the Coast Guard and other law enforcement agencies, accused of making their positions available in exchange for free ferry tickets. This is one of the latest updates in the corruption investigation led by prosecutor Walter Cotugno, who recently requested a new seizure of the email accounts of 14 executives and employees (all under investigation, including Vincenzo Onorato) of the companies Moby, Cin, and Toremar.
The prosecution has charged the three companies under Article 231, concerning the administrative liability of legal entities.
The seizure of the email accounts, according to the prosecution, is necessary because some have already revealed evidence of the practice of gifting tickets to those who could be useful for potential vessel inspections. The investigation also revealed that one of Moby’s email addresses was being emptied daily, making it impossible to recover the conversations.
The investigation erupted in April and led to the seizure of several ferries worth €64 million.
The seizure was later overturned by the Review Court. According to the prosecution’s framework, the company’s vessels lacked the requirements set by international environmental regulations: some components of the main engines and diesel generators were allegedly tampered with or replaced with non-original spare parts, thus non-compliant with regulations, which were circumvented through false entries in logs or by forging authentication marks from public authorities. The prosecution also claims that company executives gave away tickets (34,000) to Coast Guard officers and admirals to turn a blind eye. For the prosecution, this is proof of an “astonishing corrupt mechanism.”
Moby commented on the news, stating: “This seizure by the Genoa prosecutor—the company says—is yet another rehash of identical seizure measures that have already been ruled illegitimate and overturned by both the Genoa Review Court and the Supreme Court of Cassation. We consider the latest measure illegitimate, just as the judiciary has already ruled previous ones illegitimate. This is not a seizure of new documents but of documents already seized and still unlawfully in the hands of the prosecutor.”
