A parish priest was among 68 people arrested in southern Italy accused of siphoning off about €38 million (£30m) earmarked for the welfare of refugees in one of the largest migrant centres in Europe, it was reported today.
Father Edoardo Scordio, a local parish priest in the Calabrian town of Isola di Capo Rizzuto, who held regular prayers at the centre was arrested this morning and is accused of taking €132,000 (£113,000) this year alone for his "spiritual assistance", it was reported today in The Telegraph.
According to the magistrate leading the investigation, Nicola Gratteri a well-known anti-mafia magistrate, most of those arrested are members of the Arena clan, which is a branch of the notorious ‘Ndrangheta Mafia syndicate, one of the three main branches of the Mafiosi network in Italy.
“The welcome centre was the cash machine for the ‘Ndrangheta clan,” Carabinieri General Giuseppe Governale said in a press conference this morning.
“There was never enough food and we even filmed the quality of food: it was the kind of food we usually give to the pigs,” Gratteri added. “There were companies set up purposely for food service and with that money they bought theatres, cinemas, apartments, land, cars and luxury boats.”
Leonardo Sacco, above and main pic, who ran the facility was arrested on Tuesday morning
More than 500 law enforcement agents were involved in the operation, which shines a light on organised crime's involvement in the lucrative area of migrant management. The Isola di Capo Rizzuto migrant and asylum seeker reception centre on the Calabrian coast near Crotone is one of the largest in Europe, capable of hosting up to 1,600 people.
Prosecutors allege that the gang deliberately inflated the number of people the centre was hosting in order to receive more funding and to skim the difference off the top. The general manager of the centre, Leonardo Sacco, who ran the facility for the Catholic charity Misericordia, was also arrested.
Last year, 181,000 migrants reached the shores of Italy, most transported by traffickers in Libya. In the first three months of this year, 590 migrants have drowned attempting to make it to Italy on the central Mediterranean route from Libya. According to reports, more than one million sub-Saharan Africa have begun the journey to Europe via Libya and are expected to arrive during the busy summer season.
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