Information in exchange for money and restaurant lunches: three Revenue Agency officials under house arrest

Three officials of the Revenue Agency under house arrest and obligation to report to the judicial police for a retired employee of the Agency and two professionals. The policemen of the Flying Squad of the Rome Police Headquarters carried out at dawn an application order for personal precautionary measures, issued by the investigating judge at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, for the crimes of corruption and abusive access to a computer system with which the measure was ordered precautionary measure of house arrest for three officials of the Revenue Agency and of the obligation to report to the police for a retired employee of the Agency and for two professionals.

According to the prosecution hypothesis, there was a well-established corruption system through which three public employees – employed at the Revenue Agency offices of Rome 3 and Rome 4 – subjugated their public function to the private interests of some professionals in the accounting sector, for monetary compensation, i.e. the payment of restaurant lunches.

The suspects also illegally made use of the IT and telematic systems of the Tax Registry supplied to the Revenue Agency, for the purpose of consulting the information necessary to obtain the elements useful for the conclusion of procedures relating to tax assessments or to loan or inheritance contracts , in order to obtain the total reduction or significant reduction of the sums of money requested by the tax authorities. The amounts requested by public officials varied depending on the amount of the notice or the bill and on the complexity of the case and ranged from 100 euros to thousands of euros.