Italy arrested 12 people yesterday including the president of a national park and Unesco world heritage site, a local police chief and mayor on suspicion of fraud, the country’s media reported.
According left-wing La Repubblica’s website, they are accused of falsifying reports on construction work that never went ahead but for which they received “€328,000, and expected another half million”.
Among those the Italian authorities have ordered imprisoned or put under house arrest is suspected ring-leader Franco Bonanini, head of the Cinque Terre National Park near La Spezia on the northern coast.
The chief of police and the mayor of Riomaggiore, one of the five Terre or villages, as well as other municipal employees were also among those arrested.
Mr Bonanini, who is ill and was transferred from the prison in Pisa to hospital, was the head of the organisation, the newspaper said, quoting investigators.
UNESCO designated the area where the park is located a world heritage site in 1997 in recognition of its characteristic landscape along a rugged portion of coast where five villages have cultivated terraced vineyards.
Mr Bonanini is well-known in Italian environmental circles and his arrest was been met with surprise.
“Mr Bonanini is considered by everyone as a totally decent person,” Italy’s Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo said.