Money and gifts in exchange for some contracts. This is the accusation that led the investigating judge of the Court of Naples, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, to issue an order for the preventive arrest of businessman Salvatore Musella, the former mayor of Pozzuoli Vincenzo Figliolia, the vice-president of Confindustria Hotels Giorgia Palmucci and Nicola Oddati, director of the Campania Region. In total there are eleven recipients of the ordinance, four ended up in prison (Musella, Figliolia, Oddati and Palmucci), two of Musella’s collaborators under house arrest (Salvatore Della Corte and Gianluca Flaminio), five were forced to report themselves to the Police Judiciary for having been accused, in various ways, of complicity in disturbing the freedom to hold auctions, of corruption for acts contrary to official duties and of illicit influence peddling. The five are: Giovanni Bastianelli, then executive director of Enit, Angelo Tortora, employee of the municipality of Pozzuoli, Antonio Carrabba, collaborator of Musella, Sebastiano Romeo, former councilor of the Calabria Region and candidate for provincial secretary of the Democratic Party in Reggio Calabria , and Luciano Santoro, candidate for provincial secretary of the PD of Taranto, former municipal councilor of Grottaglie and former provincial councilor of Taranto.
The provision was issued after a long investigation that reportedly revealed disruptions in the bidding for the Rione Terra di Pozzuoli concession. In particular, according to the complaint, the businessman Musella, thanks to Oddati’s intermediation and privileged contact with the former mayor of Pozzuoli Vincenzo Figliolia, had received in advance the requirements for participation in the competition for the restructuring of the area into the historic center of the city of Phlegrea. and the management of a large tourist hotel complex in Antica Rocca. According to investigators from Esquadra Voadora and the Financial Police, the agreement also included the identification of the businessman’s partners and the designation of the members of the proposal evaluation committee. To facilitate the operation, according to investigators, Musella had the help of his close collaborators Salvatore Della Corte, Gianluca Flaminio and Antonio Carrabba, Angelo Tortora, an employee of the municipality of Pozzuoli, Giorgio Palmucci, president pro tempore of Enit, member of the Commission evaluator of the proposals for the award of the concession, and by Giovanni Bastianelli, at the time executive director of ENIT. To favor the company that won the contract for the redevelopment of Rione Terra in Pozzuoli, the former mayor of the city of Campania, Vincenzo Figliolia, reportedly received money and the promise of jobs.
The businessman’s area of interest would not be limited to Campania alone. Musella would also have benefited from Oddati’s illicit intermediation with the former provincial councilor of Taranto Luciano Santoro and the former provincial secretary of the Democratic Party of Reggio Calabria Sebastiano Romeo to win some contracts for the renovation of Palazzo Carducci in Taranto and the complex school « B.Chimirri» of Catanzaro. During a police search in September 2022, two envelopes with 14 thousand euros in cash, one with 10 thousand and the other with 4 thousand, were found on Nicola Oddati. Oddati justified himself by saying that being “commissioner of the Democratic Party in Taranto” that money was for party membership cards. “I don’t even know how many there are exactly – he explained – they are for the membership cards that I then have to pay for”. According to the magistrates, Musella periodically paid sums of money to Oddati, in addition to three cars that were made available to him, but also custom-made clothes, hotel stays and building renovations from which he and his partner would have benefited. Businessman Musella was searched on his PC for some Excel and Word files containing the “Christmas” and “Easter” tables until 2022 with gifts, baskets, bottles, an Apple watch, a Macbook and sums of money alongside words such as Asl, Poggioreale, hospitals, prisons, universities, municipalities, Atac, Eav, and even «politicians», Municipality of Pozzuoli, Rione Terra.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
