Failure to cross-check before the subsidy is paid are the basis of the maxi scam on citizenship income brought to light by the Mobile Squad of the Cagliari Police Headquarters.
In fact, the foreigners, as soon as they arrived in Italy - often and willingly using makeshift boats along the Algeria-Sardinia route - first went to the Cafes to apply for the subsidy and only then to the immigration office to apply for a residence permit .
"The question - explains the manager of the Mobile Team Fabrizio Mustaro - is based on a self-certification and both the Cafes and the INPS, which receives the request, do not have the possibility to verify that the potential beneficiaries have the self-certified requirements ".
Also for this reason, he stresses, "our work, which lasted 8 months, was immense and on a quantity of abnormal documents that the agents took a long time to complete".
In May the first batch of complaints, 140, now the other 300 and checks on the positions of a further 200 people. The fear is that it is just the tip of the iceberg .
Some particular cases also emerged: migrants landed in Sardinia who applied for the subsidy and returned to their country with the card on which the money was paid monthly; descendants of Italians who emigrated to South America who applied for and obtained Italian citizenship, submitted the application to obtain the income and immediately returned to the other side of the ocean , thus obtaining the benefit even in the absence of a fundamental requirement such as residence.
Precisely in these extreme cases it will be very difficult to notify the criminal decree, as well as recover the sums illegally received , because they are either unavailable or have no property, without considering that in some cases the international bilateral agreements may not provide for the prosecution to be prosecuted. .
A scam that since 2019 has stolen from the state coffers the beauty of 8 million euros , an average of 600 euros per month each: the suspects falsely self-certify that they have been resident in Italy for at least 10 years or that they have a residence permit of long period.
(Unioneonline / L)
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The interview with the manager of Mobile of Cagliari (Video by M.Vercelli):