An "illegal mediation" in exchange for 240 thousand euros. It is a heavy accusation that the Milanese prosecutor moves against Beppe Grillo, investigated for trafficking in illicit influences together with Vincenzo Onorato, the shipowner who in 2018 and 2019 would have paid a compensation of 120 thousand to the communication company of the founder of the Movimento Cinque Stelle. euro per year to disseminate "editorial content" for the Moby brand on the web.

An "apparent" compensation for the judiciary, behind which there would have been requests to move in favor of the shipping company in financial difficulties, advanced by the Neapolitan entrepreneur and sent by the leader of the M5S, via chat, to the "parliamentarians in charge" of its deployment to "guide" public intervention.

THE SEQUESTRI - Yesterday the men of the Gdf Economic and Financial Police Unit, coordinated by the prosecutor Cristiana Roveda and the deputy prosecutor Maurizio Romanelli, searched and seized chats, emails and documents stored on PCs and on other IT media in the offices of Beppe Grillo srl in Genoa and Casaleggio Associati in the center of Milan and other people not under investigation, including the son of the patron of the "blue whale", Achille Onorato. The mobile phones of the web graphics of the blog of Beppe Grillo, Nina Monti, Luca Eleuteri, founding partner of Casaleggio Associati, that of the CEO of Moby Spa Achille Onorato and Annamaria Barrile and Giovanni Savarese, who were in the company head of institutional relations and head of the press office.

What immediately jumped to the eye is instead that Grillo's cell phone was not seized, on which it is also assumed that the owner's requests were received at the entrance or the inputs to the 5-star parliamentarians at the exit. An obvious choice, therefore, by the Milan Public Prosecutor's Office, which did not even dare to look for chats on the devices of 5-star deputies protected by parliamentary guarantees. Otherwise a whole series of chats would have ended up in the proceedings, for example on the dynamics of the Movement, on the relationship between Grillo and the former premier Conte, on the positioning of the 5 Stars in view of the upcoming vote at the Quirinale, and probably also on the process that sees his son Ciro involved in Sardinia.

THE INQUIRY - The investigation, born some time ago from documents transmitted by the Florence prosecutors holding the file on the Open case, also made use of the framework drawn up by the accounting consultancy filed in the civil proceeding on the arrangement with creditors of the Cin company by the prosecutor Roberto Fontana , owner of an investigation into the bankruptcy of the Onorato Group. Framework from which the entrepreneur's payments to various political parties emerge and which, after a series of in-depth analyzes and the identification of a series of messages from Onorato to Grillo and "conveyed" to parliamentarians to obtain laws and funding aimed at saving Moby, has led for now to circumscribe the story. The prosecutors believe that the mediation operated by Grillo is "illegal on the basis of both" the amount of the amounts paid or promised "by Onorato, and the" generic nature of the causes of the contracts ", and" the relationships actually existing and used "by the comedian, in politics a dozen years ago, "at the express requests" of the shipowner "in the interest of the Moby group".

In practice, reconstructs the search decree, Grillo with his company received 120 thousand euros per year both in 2018 and in 2019 "apparently as consideration for a partnership agreement" with the ferry company to broadcast "on virtual channels", such as the site beppegrillo.it, editorial content for the Moby brand. In exchange, according to the hypothesis to be ascertained, the guarantor of the Five Stars would have made the parliamentarians of the movement founded by him have the requests of Onorato addressing, it is the hypothesis, the public intervention "favorable to the interests" of the shipping company at the time and still burdened by the accounts in red. Furthermore, Grillo would also have transferred to the shipowner "the responses of the political party or direct contacts with the latter".

The investigators and investigators, then, also lit a beacon on the contract between Moby spa and Casaleggio Associati for the three-year period 2018-2020 and which provided for the payment of 600 thousand euros per year, in addition to VAT and "fees. ”Aimed at the achievement of particular objectives, for the drafting of a strategic plan and the advertising campaign“ io navigo Italiano ”, which ended up at the center of controversy as it was accused of“ racism ”.

THE CORRELATION - The correlation that prosecutors must now demonstrate to contest the trafficking of illicit influences is that, in the same period, "Grillo received requests from Onorato for interventions in favor of Moby spa", and for the prosecutors "he conveyed them to parliamentarians in office belonging to the Movement ”which he founded,“ thus transferring the responses of the political party or direct contacts with the latter to the private sector ”. A triangle on which the Milanese investigators would already have evidence, acquired in Florence in some Onorato's chats in the Florentine investigation on Matteo Renzi's Open Foundation.

At present, Davide Casaleggio, legal representative and majority shareholder of the company that received a visit from the Fiamme Gialle yesterday, is not under investigation. And while no statement was received from Grillo and his defense, when contacted, the lawyer of Onorato, Pasquale Pantano, limited himself to observing: "They are old friends, for about 45 years. It is therefore easy that something could be been misunderstood, but it is necessary to read the documents ".

(Unioneonline / vl)

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