The judgment

Italy-Bangladesh visa trafficking, two convicted: they had tried to bribe an MP

The organisers tried to bribe MP Andrea Di Giuseppe, who did not accept and - by recording conversations - provided evidence to investigators

by Lorenzo Pace

16 February 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

Traffic
The self-goal trying to bribe Mr Di Giuseppe
Bargaining

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The case on the trafficking visas between Italia and Bangladesh ends with two convictions and fines of more than 600,000 euro. The court in Rome filed the plea bargaining sentence for Nazrul Islam and Shamim Kazi, who will have to serve 4 years and 8 months and 4 years and 2 months imprisonment respectively. To be added to 315,000 euro fine each and confiscation of property.

The traffic

The system was based on a proven bribery scheme. Bengali citizens paid up to 15,000 euro to obtain an Italian work visa, slightly more than twice the tourist visa fee. Nazrul and his collaborators would collect the sums and use them to bribe the officials of the Italian Embassy in Dhaka, who were paid to issue visas without verifying the actual employment.

In some cases, fictitious contracts were created with non-existent companies to justify visa applications. The computer system of the Single Desk for Immigration in Rome, in fact, allowed any document to be attached in PDF format, without substantial verification.

During the searches, nulla osta were found issued to Bengali citizens who had never had any contact with the companies indicated in the applications. In addition, fictitious or inactive companies were used to obtain the necessary permits to bring workers into Italy who were then not hired. In short, contracts useful only to cross the border, with 88 cases of illegal immigration already crystallised in the device, although the confessions hint at a pool of thousands of irregular immigrants ready to pay exorbitant sums.

The self-goal trying to bribe MP Di Giuseppe

This was not enough for the organisers, who thus attempted to bribe the Member of Parliament Andrea Di Giuseppe (Fratelli d'Italia), a member of the Foreign Affairs Commission, who was offered a 2 million euro bribe, in addition to 25% of the earnings obtained in Italy from the Bengalis that he would eventually smuggle in illegally.

The court papers recount, through his complaint (in March 2023), the way he was approached. He was allegedly approached by Nazrul Islam, a Bengali restaurant owner but operating in Rome, 'who had described to him a phenomenon of systematic corruption' aimed at 'issuing entry visas to Italy' but had also 'attempted to involve him in this illicit activity by paying substantial sums of money'.

Di Giuseppe: 'The State is not for sale'

And so, the MP, assisted by lawyer Antonio Di Pietro, pretended to go along with the bribe-givers in order to record their conversations and hand over evidence of the offer to the investigators. This sentence, for Di Giuseppe, 'is not just a judicial victory, but a signal: the State is not for sale. When they offered me 2 million to betray my mandate, I realised that the only way to stop them was to frame them. The easy visa business is a threat to national security that drugs the labour market and finances human trafficking'.

The plea agreement

All this led to a long list of convictions within the pages of the sentence. A short list, both for Nazrul Islam and Shamim Kazi, for their cooperation in which they reconstructed the 'facts charged against them, clarifying in detail positions, aspects and circumstances, thus providing a concrete contribution to the ascertainment of the facts', The statements confirmed the complicity of Nicola Muscatello, an attaché at the Italian Embassy in Bangladesh, who 'received - we read - sums of money for the purpose of issuing visas'.

This brings the sentence to four years and more imprisonment, to be added to fines of more than half a million and the confiscation of EUR 50,000 from Nazrul Islam and EUR 20,000 from Shamim Kazi. For both of them, the accessory penalty of disqualification from public office for five years is also applied.