Citizenship Income Scam: Post Office employee also involved, arrests between Monza and Milano

The Carabinieri of the Operational and Radiomobile Unit of the Brescia Company, during the early morning of 2 December 2021, in Monza and Cesano Boscone (MI), in application of a precautionary custody order ordered by the Court of Milano at the request of the local Public Prosecutor's Office, they arrested three people held responsible, for various reasons and in concert with each other, of corruption, forgery, aggravated fraud to obtain public funds, undue receipt of citizenship income.

The arrest of the three people - a man and a woman living together of community origins and an Italian woman aged 27, 26 and 48 respectively - represented only the final phase of a complex investigation, conducted by the Carabinieri of Brescia and coordinated by Public Prosecutor's Office Milano, which allowed us to obtain an important piece of evidence against the suspects.

The investigations were started by the soldiers of the Carabinieri Company of Brescia following the analysis of the contents of the smartphones of the two cohabitants, as part of another investigative activity - which ended with the arrest of three people in November 2020 - which saw them involved in various titles in the recruitment of young foreign workers, including minors, who were then forced to work incessantly without pay, under threat and physical violence, within illegally occupied agricultural land in the industrial area of ​​Usmate Velate (MB), in collection, disposal and recovery for the resale of "pallets".

The subsequent investigations - always conducted by the Brescia Carabinieri under the direction of the Public Prosecutor's Office Milano – made it possible to ascertain that the two, recipients of precautionary custody in prison, requested and obtained the granting of the benefit of the "Citizenship Income" in favor of their compatriots who were completely unaware and also without the requirements, personally collecting the relevant sums of money via the appropriate cards. To this end, they systematically bribed the 48-year-old Italian woman, the recipient of precautionary custody under house arrest, who, as a counter operator employed at a post office in the Milan area, received money or various gifts such as t-shirts, perfumes and food products from them, to carry out acts contrary to their official duties. In particular, the same, holding the role of public official in the investigation for the release of the so-called. "citizen income cards", received from the two certificates of permanent residence - relating to the future holders of the benefit - visibly counterfeit as they differed from the original model envisaged, thus falsely certifying the regularity of the procedure and the identity of the subjects, to whom moreover physically delivered the cards for the collection of the benefit (issued by Poste Italiane upon recognition of the benefit by INPS).

The counterfeits occurred through the use of artificial stamps and signatures attributable to the Registry Office of the Municipality of Milano and to employees of the Municipality of Milano actually existing and completely unaware.

Furthermore, the compliant post office employee, in agreement with the other two recipients of the precautionary measure, occasionally made use of the "collaboration" of a colleague employed in the same office, who was released in a state of freedom.

Overall, the Carabinieri of the Brescia Company quantified the fraud against the Treasury in a total amount of 19.030,00 euros, withdrawn in just 7 months, through the use of 16 "citizen income cards" obtained illicitly.

Furthermore, since the first light of this morning, the Carabinieri of Brescia carried out a long search inside the homes of the suspects and the post office in question, thanks also to the support of the Carabinieri of the Provincial Commands of Milano and Monza Brianza.

At the end of the activities, the man and the woman of community origin were brought together at the prison in Monza while the 48-year-old Italian woman was subjected to the cruel measure of house arrest at her home in the Milan area.