Roggero: 50,000 euros from the #iostoconmarioroggero fundraising campaign have been seized
There is a risk of the case being lost. The Court of Cassation had ruled that the committee’s appeal against the preventive seizure was inadmissible
The Turin Public Prosecutor’s Office confirms that it has requested and obtained the precautionary seizure of 50,000 euros, which had been transferred from the bank account of the #iostoconmarioroggero committee had been transferred to a Tunisian account in the name of the jeweller from Grinzane Cavour and his wife Mariangela Sandrone, prior to the appeal hearing.
Roggero was ordered at first instance by the Court of Assizes of Asti to pay provisional damages of 480,000 euros to 14 relatives of the murdered robbers, who were civil parties to the proceedings, and to the third accomplice, the victim of an attempted murder. The judgement was ‘upheld on this point on appeal’. The final amount of damages will be determined in separate civil proceedings.
The Supreme Court’s ruling
On 25 February 2025, the Court of Cassation, had rejected the appeallodged by Mari0 Roggero and the #Iostoconmarioroggero committee against the preventive seizure, reaffirming that the €50,000 raised by the #Iostoconmarioroggero campaign in support of the jeweller from Grinzane Cavour was subject to seizure. In the Court of Cassation’s view, the ‘surprise’ measure was justified by the risk of the funds being dispersed – funds that were about to be transferred to an account in Tunisia. The money was intended to settle the tax authorities’ claims and to compensate the victims’ families.
The committee’s appeal has been declared inadmissible
Immediately following the first-instance sentence of 17 years, an online fundraising campaign was launched on the jewellery shop’s website to cover the compensation ordered by the court to be paid to the victims’ families and the survivor. Three bank transfers had been received for a total of 140,000 and then the 50,000 euros seized. The #Iostoconmarioroggero committee had also lodged an appeal with the Court of Cassation, seeking the revocation of the measure; an appeal that the Supreme Court had ruled inadmissible. This was because the money raised by the committee formed by citizens in solidarity with the jeweller had by then become available to the latter, thereby removing their standing to request the release of the seized funds. The sole owner was now Mario Roggero, who had arranged a bank transfer of 50,000 euros to a Tunisian bank.
The defence had contested the report made by the Guardia di Finanza to the judicial police regarding the suspected transaction involving Tunisia. However, the Court of Cassation had deemed the existence of the alleged offence of self-laundering to be irrelevant for the purposes of determining the lawfulness of a precautionary seizure, intended to secure the costs incurred for the first-instance wiretaps, to cover the remuneration of lay judges and in anticipation of those for the appeal. Now, following the final conviction by the Court of Cassation, the public prosecutor’s office has confirmed the seizure.
