Excellent arrests this morning in Otranto, in Salento: a mayor in office, Pierpaolo Cariddi, suspended from the post of mayor because subjected to a residence ban since 8 July last, and his brother Luciano, who had preceded him, ended up in prison in the same role.
Together with the two, among the 10 people arrested by the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanza as part of an investigation called “King Arthur” and involving 60 suspects, there is also the president of Federalberghi of Lecce, Raffaele De Santis. For those arrested, the accusation is, for various reasons, of criminal association aimed at committing multiple crimes against the public administration, electoral corruption, fraud in criminal proceedings, misdirection, disturbed freedom of enchantments and fraud against the State and ‘EU.
Overall, the suspects are 60. The investigations started in 2017 and the arrests, carried out by the Carabinieri and GdF, which resulted confirm – according to the investigators – that the “modus operandi” of the public officials under investigation was “inspired, in addition to enrichment personnel, to ensure bases of electoral consensus through a personalistic management of power units at both local and regional level ».
The investigation also led to the preventive seizure of tourist accommodation facilities, bathing establishments, agritourism companies, various real estate units and numerous sums of money, for an estimated value of several million euros, “illegally authorized or implemented – it is said in a note – in violation of building and landscaping regulations ».
The investigation by the Salento judiciary would have brought out “a consolidated associative system of a corrupting political-entrepreneurial nature, which for some time would have pervaded a specific municipal administration, involving its administrators and officials” too close “to some entrepreneurs with economic interests in that center, cultivated through artificial awarding of contracts and issuance of municipal concessions offering various types of utilities, even to ensure a “pool of votes” for the electoral support received by some of the suspects, as well as economic and property advantages for the rest ».