Mario Adinolfi under house arrest: fraud and tax evasion connected to "Collective Betting"
The Guardia di Finanza has arrested the journalist and leader of the People of the Family. Estimated damages amount to five million euros.
Arrest in Rome: Adinolfi detained over "Collective Betting"
The Guardia di Finanza has arrested Mario Adinolfi, journalist and leader of the People of the Family, placing him under house arrest. This is reported by roma.corriere.it: the Rome Prosecutor's Office accuses him of fraud and tax evasion linked to the scheme known as "Collective Betting". According to the magistrates, "the alleged system would have produced damage close to five million euros; a further 400,000 euros would instead be the result of tax evasion".
The mechanism of "Collective Betting"
At the centre of the investigation is the "exclusive club" founded by Adinolfi years ago: to join it, participants made annual or quarterly payments of between 3,000 and 10,000 euros, in return for the promise of returns of up to 40% per annum, guaranteed — according to the promoter — by a "team of experts" and by sophisticated algorithms applied to sports betting.
Adinolfi, known for his ultraconservative positions on Catholic values, had repeatedly described the initiative as transparent. "The invested sum is always and in any case guaranteed", he had declared in an interview, specifying that those who requested repayment outside the quarterly windows provided would forfeit the winnings accrued. At the latest European football championships, he had also advertised a "Vip Plus" offer of 9,500 euros, promising an increase of 150% by the end of 2024, raised to 200% in the event of Italy's victory.
The complaints and the investigation by Le Iene
The investigation began on the initiative of some participants who reported that they had been unable to recover the invested sums. Posts on social media attest to circulation of the scheme between 2022 and 2023, despite Adinolfi having stated on several occasions that he had already closed the activity and that he had involved only a limited number of people in any case.
The matter had already come to light thanks to multiple episodes of "Le Iene" on Italia 1. The television investigation had culminated in a heated physical clash between Adinolfi and correspondent Filippo Roma at the end of an electoral presentation: the images, widely circulated on social media, show the journalist being grabbed by the hair. In April, the production issued a statement: "The exchange between the correspondent and Adinolfi became heated, and considerably so, to the point of degenerating into physical assault on Filippo Roma". The correspondent had rejected Adinolfi's accusations — which had called him a criminal and a user of extras — by showing his own criminal record and reiterating the solidity of the work carried out.
Among the cases documented by the programme was that of a disabled woman resident in the province of Rome, with an income of less than 800 euros per month, who would have handed over her savings trusting in the promises of returns and who had subsequently filed a complaint at the Rome Court. Another person had declared before the cameras: "I am not an extra. I have experienced economic and personal damage in the first person. If I do not recover my capital, I will make my testimony public".
The judge: "Persists in deception and manipulation"
The Rome investigating judge Giulia Arcieri issued a twenty-page precautionary custody order. In the document, the magistrate writes that "the dangerousness of Mario Adinolfi emerges from the television interviews in the files, from his attitude of denying the debts incurred and from statements about the alleged falsity of the complaints filed against him — which are truthful as they are corroborated by the bank transfers executed and by the emails exchanged between the parties to the agreement —, which demonstrate how the suspect, far from distancing himself from any errors of the past, persists with determination in deception and manipulation of reality, shirking his own responsibilities".
The order also refers to the risk of tampering with evidence: "The freedom of the individual could affect the genuineness of the evidence, given that investigative activities are ongoing with reference to the collection of statements from other injured parties and documentation relating to the relations between them and the suspect". The investigating judge emphasises that "the financial flows are still being reconstructed and other criminal offences could emerge".
The specific risk highlighted is that Adinolfi "could approach the individuals who have already filed complaints and induce them to recant, in whole or in part, given that some of them would be vulnerable persons in relation to compromised health conditions or from a financial perspective — having invested all their capital in the operation promoted by the suspect — and therefore approachable also with the promise of sums of money or favours".
Source: Google News IT — Crime (it)