(ANSA) - BARI, 09 FEB - The Guardia di Finanza is carrying out two precautionary measures of house arrest in Bari and in the province against an official of the Puglia Region, the 50-year-old Antonio Mercurio, and a building contractor from Bari, the 56-year-old Antonio Illuzzi, accused in various title of corruption for an act contrary to official duties, material falsehood committed by the public official in public documents.
The crimes would have been committed in 2021. The seizure of the assets belonging to the two arrested persons and of the former manager of the Civil Protection of the Region, Mario Lerario, was also underway, arrested in 2021 with two other Apulian entrepreneurs for the hypothesis of a crime of corruption for the exercise of the function.
The investigations by the Gdf would have revealed the alleged payment to Lerario of 35,000 euros by the entrepreneur Illuzzi, the result of the award of nine contracts by the Provveditorato Bursar Section, with deeds signed by the former manager and the official of the Puglia Region, in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, for a total amount of over 2,283,000 euros.
In particular, according to the indictment accepted by the investigating judge, the investigations would have revealed that these contracts would have been awarded in contravention of the sector regulations through their artificial splitting and without respecting the principle of rotation of economic operators.
Furthermore, the presence of payments of sums exceeding those awarded, for over 45,000 euros, would have been detected.
The investigative activities would also have revealed the further hypothesis of a crime of material falsehood in public documents which would have been committed, in competition, by the former manager and the official of the Puglia Region, in a management act dated August 2021 for 135,750 euros.
(HANDLE).
