A judicial earthquake shook the small Port Authority of Carloforte . An officer of the Maritime District Office, perhaps even for years, would have distributed nautical licenses in exchange for money or other benefits, without having the aspiring skippers take the exam necessary to obtain the certification. There are already a dozen people in the register of suspects, but the prosecutor's investigation is destined to spread like wildfire because now the investigators are allegedly investigating the licenses issued in the last four years.
The investigation was assigned to the deputy prosecutor Andrea Vacca who in recent days sent out the invitations to appear for the first suspects: they were heard today by the investigators of the maritime and judicial police section of the prosecutor's office.
To end up in the register of suspects, in addition to the officer in service in the Port Authority of the island, there are also people who would have obtained a boat license without taking the exam . The first disputes concern events that would have occurred in the summer of 2018, but the investigations are continuing to ascertain the qualification certificates granted in the following years.
For the moment the disputed crimes are those of corruption and forgery. In the first case, according to the prosecutor's hypothesis, the officer would have carried out acts contrary to his office, receiving an unspecified sum of money or other benefits from the aspiring captains of small boats, so as to obtain the issuance of the licence. The forgeries, on the other hand, are hypothesized to reconstruct the ploy used to obtain the licence: first fake reports were drawn up certifying participation in the exam, then the loss of the never obtained license was reported to the police or the carabinieri and, finally, the drafted a false certificate. All without ever taking the exam.
In recent days, the officer of the Carloforte Harbor Master's Office – defended by the lawyer Marco Aste – had his mobile phones and office computer confiscated.
Prosecutor Andrea Vacca has already assigned the consultant the task of extracting the data and examining the content, so as to verify whether there is material useful for the investigation. At the same time, the maritime and judicial police unit of the prosecutor's office is continuing to verify the numerous licenses issued over the years. The suspicion is that, at the end of the investigations, there will be several dozen suspects. Among the defenders stand out the lawyers Marco and Gianluca Aste, Francesco Marongiu, Carlo Amat and numerous other legal officers.
