A Benevento city official was arrested by the Carabinieri red-handed while pocketing a four-thousand-euro bribe. The operation was triggered by a complaint from a self-employed professional, the director of a local design firm, which led the Carabinieri to arrest 63-year-old Gennaro Santamaria , chief of staff to Mayor Clemente Mastella.

According to the professional, the public official had abused his senior position and unduly demanded a large sum of money in exchange for unblocking administrative proceedings and building permits. The victim's requests had been subjected to an unusual delay in the investigation—between bureaucratic delays and specious requests for additional documentation—"aimed at inducing a state of subjugation and economic asphyxiation." This escalation culminated in the explicit request for €70,000 to unblock the process.

The Carabinieri intervened immediately after the delivery of an initial tranche of four thousand euros in cash (money previously recorded by the judicial police and already returned to the professional). During the subsequent search of the suspect's home , in addition to seizing several valuable watches (estimated at approximately 100,000 euros), the Carabinieri of the Benevento provincial command found a veritable "archive" of cash : 157,400 euros in banknotes (primarily 50 and 100 euro notes) divided with surgical precision into bundles of 5,000 euros each. Each bundle was placed in a paper envelope with the amount written in pen on the outside.

"This investigative result," commented Prosecutor D'Angelo, "clearly demonstrates that legality cannot be delegated solely to the repressive action of the Public Prosecutor's Office or law enforcement. The true and insurmountable barrier against any form of abuse, extortion, or illicit influence lies in citizens' sense of legality and their determination not to submit to the logic of corruption. The discovery of such large and—at present—unjustified sums of money underscores the urgency of uniting against all forms of abuse. For this reason, the Benevento Public Prosecutor's Office strongly urges citizens, professionals, and entrepreneurs not to submit in silence, but to promptly report any incident of extortion, extortion, or other illicit pressure of which they have been victims or witnesses. They can confidently turn to state institutions."

Benevento's opposition city councilors, Luigi Diego Perifano, Floriana Fioretti, Raffaele De Longis, Giovanni De Lorenzo, Maria Letizia Varricchio, Francesco Farese, Giovanna Megna, Angelo Miceli, Vincenzo Sguera, and Angelo Moretti, also spoke out on the case. "We express deep concern and dismay at the arrest in flagrante delicto of the mayor's cabinet chief and municipal executive Gennaro Santamaria. We support due process and await justice, but the account presented by the investigating authorities is alarming. Faced with allegations of objectively serious events, we therefore ask the mayor and the administration to clearly and unequivocally take a stand on the incident. Unfortunately, we are forced to recall that over the years, we have repeatedly complained, at both the political and administrative levels, about the concentration of power in Santamaria's hands. An external manager, it is worth remembering, who did not win a public competition, but was chosen through a fiduciary appointment by the mayor", add the city councilors.

(Unioneonline)

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