Italian priest, charity leader charged with stealing funds destined for immigrants
May 16, 2017
Police in Italy have arrested 68 people—including a Catholic priest and the head of a Catholic charitable agency—in a crackdown on what prosecutors describe as a bid by organized crime to siphon off funds that were allocated to immigrants.
Prosecutors said that an organized-crime family, the notorious ‘Ndrangheta, had gained control of the distribution of funds to immigrants in a center for immigrants in Isola di Capo Rizzuto. The center for immigrants and a charitable agency known as “Mercy” had become “ATMs for the mafia,” said a police spokesman.
Leonardo Sacco, the head of Mercy, was arrested, as was Father Edoardo Scordio, a priest connected with the agency. Police charged that Father Scordio had received €132,000 ($146,000) for himself, while acting as “the organizer of a true system of exploitation of public funds destined for the migrant emergency.”
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