More than 40 citizens have been detained in Italy for allegedly obtaining immigrant visas, according to police and prosecutors on Wednesday, just days after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni complained that gang organizations were profiting from the program.
Forty-four persons were apprehended, including 13 put in jail, 24 under house arrest and seven in prison. They were charged with various acts, such as legal organization aimed at abetting illegal immigration, cash fraud and false payment.
Additional 10 defendants received a 12-month ban from their businesses.
The suspects filed false visa applications on behalf of workers, who need the employer funding to begin the process, according to a statement released by prosecutors from the southern area of Salerno, close to Naples.
They filed “around 2, 500” applications from 2020 onwards “based on non-existent or falsified data”, prosecutors said, adding that migrants paid as much as 7, 000 euros ($ 7, 575.40 ) each to push the process along through various bureaucratic hoops.
According to the prosecution, goods for about 6 million dollars were seized as earnings from the reported crimes, indicating that some of the defendants accused of money laundering had connections to the Camorra and the Mafia in and around Naples.
According to Salerno Chief Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli, investigations were accelerated after Meloni in June claimed she had reported her fears about possible card scams to the federal anti-Mafia attorney.
In response to growing labor shortages, Meloni’s centrist state has passed a number of measures to halt immigrant arrivals as well as expanded legal immigration channels.
Last month, it raised quotas for work permits for non-EU members to a total of 452, 000 for the time 2023-2025, an increase of nearly 150 % from the previous three years. In 2019, before the COVID-19 crisis, Italy issued only 30, 850 permits.
The program is tremendously oversubscribed, with 151, 000 spots available for 2024 alone, and almost 244, 000 demands made in the first 10 days of the beginning of the process, according to the interior government.
Alarm bells were ringing last month when Meloni claimed a significant number of applications had come from Campania, the financially depressed place containing Naples and its Camorra mob.
Immigrant rights advocates claim that extreme red tape makes it easier to obtain visas and that it frequently benefits undocumented migrants now living in Italy who use the quotas to legalize their situation.
($ 1 = 0.9240 euros )
