The headed papers were those of the courts of Vercelli, Benevento and Modena. Or at least that’s what they seemed to be. And even the documents certifying the correct execution of the notifications, apparently signed by the judicial officers, had nothing to envy the originals. And then the certified email, the logo of the law firm, the usual seizure notices and the related unsuspected orders. In short, nothing strange or alarming for a bank that, having received all the papers from a self-styled lawyer, paid him the money from 18 phantom seizures to the detriment of a public body.
An outlay of 97 thousand euros that has now ended up at the center of an investigation for aggravated fraud: those documents presented by the self-styled lawyer to the bank, in reality, were all false. In the sights of the investigators is a fifty-two-year-old from Caserta who is not new to tricks of this kind. The investigation was opened by the Rome prosecutor’s office and the investigating judge of the capital, on September 4, issued a preventive seizure order for a sum equal to the amount stolen. The investigating officer is the economic and financial police unit of the Guardia di Finanza. According to the reconstruction of the investigating judge, the fifty-year-old first “created a false identity as a lawyer”, obtaining a certified email address “which turned out not to be registered” and headed paper.
Then he notified the bank of “third-party seizure notices” in which he mentioned some non-existent civil proceedings and to which alleged enforcement titles were attached. A game of forgeries. Once he received the “positive” declaration from the bank, he then sent the institute “the false assignment orders” of the seized sums and pocketed almost one hundred thousand euros through a bank transfer. He had sent 86 applications, he obtained the liquidation of 18. Child’s play, he must have thought. And instead, both the bank and the entity that owned the current accounts from which the money was stolen noticed the fraud – albeit late, and they blocked everything and filed the complaint from which the file then arose.
According to Judge Emanuela Attura, who signed the decree, it is necessary to “prevent the crime from being brought to more serious consequences”, that is, that the man can spend or permanently lose that money that in the event of a conviction will have to be returned to the victims. Which would mean, for the defrauded, a double mockery.