Mafia massacre investigation in '93

Undeclared Berlusconi transfers, €10.8m seized from Dell'Utri spouses

The measure was ordered by the Florence DDA because the former FI senator and his wife allegedly failed to declare to the tax authorities over 42 million euro received from the Cavaliere in violation of the Rognoni-La Torre law on anti-mafia measures

21 March 2024

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A maxi-million-dollar seizure against Marcello Dell'Utri and his wife Miranda Anna Ratti as part of the Florence Public Prosecutor's investigation into the alleged external instigators of the 1993 Mafia massacres in Rome, Milan and Florence, where the former Forza Italia senator is still under investigation.

The Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate of Florence executed the preventive seizure order aimed at confiscation, issued by the judge of preliminary investigations of the Court of Florence. The seizure was ordered because, according to the Anti-Mafia District Directorate of Florence, Dell'Utri failed to declare for tax purposes a total amount of EUR 42,679,200 as a change in income, thus violating the Rognoni-La Torre law on anti-mafia measures.

The more than 42 million undeclared, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, are the transfers that the then leader of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi, paid to Dell'Utri once he had been convicted by a final decision, following the Supreme Court ruling of 9 May 2014, and filed on 1 July 2014, for the crime of external complicity in the crime of mafia-type association.

Failure to notify changes in assets

As explained by the Dda in a statement signed by prosecutor Filippo Spiezia, Dell'Utri allegedly failed to 'communicate, within the terms established by law, asset variations totalling EUR 42,679,200'. The precautionary measure of seizure for confiscation was requested and obtained 'with regard to the criminal offences referred to in Articles 30 and 31 of Law no. 646 of 13 September 1982' (Rognoni-La Torre law) because Marcello Dell'Utri 'with several actions and omissions, at different times, in execution of the same criminal plan, although he was obliged to do so, as he had been sentenced by a final decision', failed to 'communicate the changes in his assets'.

The Gip's order ordered 'the preventive seizure in direct form, up to the amount of EUR 10,840,451.72 attributable to Marcello Dell'Utri, as well as, for the share of EUR 8,250,000.00 of the total sum indicated above (EUR 42,679,200, ed.), also indirectly attributable to the aforementioned, through Miranda Anna Ratti, or for equivalent assets directly and indirectly available to Marcello Dell'Utri'.

Force Italia ex-senator still under investigation

The investigation in which the real precautionary measure was issued, explains the Florentine Dda, 'is part of the criminal proceedings that are the subject of a broader coordination of investigations, carried out at national level by the National Anti-Mafia Directorate, aimed at identifying the external instigators of the 1993-1994 continental massacres'. Until his disappearance, Berlusconi was also under investigation with the former Forza Italia senator. In the course of the proceedings, the Dda also explains, 'various investigations have been conducted concerning the financial flows involving Marcello Dell'Utri from 2014 to the present.

According to what has emerged so far, the latter, despite being obliged to do so, as he had been convicted by a final decision, following the sentence of the Court of Cassation of 9 May 2014, for the offence of external complicity in the crime of mafia-type association, failed to communicate, within the time limits laid down by law, the asset variations indicated in Article 30 of Law No. 646/1982 for the amount indicated above, as redetermined by the judge of preliminary investigations".