• Investigation overalls in Lombardy. Attilio Fontana investigated
  • Investigation of lab coats in Lombardy, Fontana's brother-in-law investigated

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July 25, 2020 The Lombard governor Attilio Fontana is investigated by the Milan prosecutor as part of the investigation into the supply of gowns and other medical material for € 500 thousand by Dama spa. The company is owned by Fontana's brother-in-law, Andrea Dini, and the governor's wife has a 10% stake. The hypothesis of crime contested in Fontana by the prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli and by the prosecutors Paolo Filippini, Luigi Furno and Carlo Scalas is fraud in public supplies.

The Milanese magistrates began to investigate the matter after receiving a report of suspicious transaction dated 22 May through the UIF of the Bank of Italy and commissioned the Currency unit of the finance guard to make a further investigation. The story was then brought to light by the transmission Report, which in the episode of June 8 reconstructs the 'lab coat case'. Fontana would have had an "active role", from what has been learned from judicial sources, not so much in the phase of assigning the order to the family company, as in the following phases. On 19 May he would have ordered a bank transfer to the brother-in-law's company of 250 thousand euros through the Fiduciary Union, which administers part of the capital that the governor would have "shielded" and brought back from Switzerland in 2015. Bank transfer which, in the intentions of the governor, it would have had to cover the production costs and part of the loss of earnings for the 75 thousand gowns destined for Aria, the central purchasing department of the Lombardy Region, whose supply had been agreed on April 26 through a direct assignment.

The next day, May 20, Dama Spa sends an email to Aria notifying the intention to donate the almost 50,000 lab coats already delivered, giving up getting paid. The Unione Fiduciaria - which was searched by the finance guard in recent days - had not started the transfer because according to the anti-money laundering legislation there would have been no reason or a performance consistent with the activity carried out by a "sensitive" subject as Fontana for his political office. From here to a report to the UIF of the Bank of Italy, the step was short, a report that in fact gave way to the investigations.

Reconstruction confirmed by Deputy Prosecutor of Milan Maurizio Romanelli, who explained: "The file on the supply of gowns is opened on the basis of a report of suspicious transactions sent to the Milan prosecutor by the special currency police unit of the Guardia di Finanza", referring to the report made by the Fiduciary Union of a bank transfer then blocked of 250,000 euros by the governor of Lombardy Attilio Fontana alla Dama spa, the company of his brother-in-law, with the reason that referred to the gowns. Romanelli confirmed that the governor is being investigated only for public supply fraud.