Poor old Silvio Berlusconi. His Forza Italia party got a drubbing in the recent European elections and, on top of this, his personal party is short of cash, he claims.
Forza Italia got not far short of €20 million in ‘election reimbursements’ after the 2013 elections, so where has all the party money gone? Could someone have stolen Forza Italia funds? Well, looking at the people Berlusconi surrounds himself with, theft is not exactly unlikely.
Perhaps Raffaele Fitto, pretender to the Berlusconi throne, and recently elected Member of the European Parliament, with a record number of preference votes to boot, pinched some Forza Italia cash? Fitto has already been convicted of fiddling. Last yeat, albeit at the first of three levels of Italian justice, Fitto was convicted of corruption, illegal funding of political parties, and abuse of office. He’s quite a dodgy character. Did Fitto filch party funds too? Perish the thought!
Another Berlusconi stalwart, one Denis Verdini, has had a few brushes with the law and is suspected of a whole host of dodgy dealings. Maybe Verdini snaffled party funds? No, unlikely. Pot bellied Verdini has pots of cash himself.
If Verdini or Fitto didn’t pinch party funds, maybe it was Augusto Minzolini, Berlusconi’s own personal TV PR man. The august Minzolini has one prosecution for defamation under his belt and is being investigated for quite a number of fraud-related offences, including, wait for it, embezzlement! Then again, Minzolini is so tied up legal wrangles, he probably won’t have had enough time to spirit away Forza Italia cash. Any other candidates? Plenty.
We probably can’t count Forza Italia mamber Daniele Capezzone seeing as he only has one tweey weeny conviction for defamation. Another, possible, suspect?
Stop reading, start speaking
Stop translating in your head and start speaking Italian for real with the only audio course that prompt you to speak.
If investigators were ever to look into what happened to Forza Italia’s funds, they might like to have a chat with one Daniela Santanchè. Huge Berlusconi fan Santanchè’s entrepreneurial activities have not been going too well, even if she’s won a few contracts from close friends. Maybe she’s not been earning enough to cover her outgoings. She may have been tempted to grant herself a little loan from Forza Italia coffers. Plastic surgery aficionado Santanchè may also have needed cash to fund one her frequent facelifts. Then again, maybe Santanchè didn’t bother pinching a thing, she may simply have used her womanly wiles to get what she wanted.
There is yet another probable suspect though. One Maurizio Gasparri who is being investigated for having “borrowed” party funds to help finance a life insurance policy. But no, couldn’t have been Gasparri who’s left Forza Italia short of cash. He has assured investigators he returned the money. Even so, prosecutors would like to bring charges of embezzlement against the honourable Italian Senator.
