The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, is also under investigation as part of the investigation into contracts and bribes which today led to the arrest, among others, of the municipal councilor for mobility, Renato Boraso.
In addition to Brugnaro, the mayor's chief of staff and general director of the municipality, Morris Ceron, and the deputy chief of staff, Derek Donadini, are under investigation. The affair involving Brugnaro concerns the negotiations for the sale of the "Pili" area overlooking the Venice lagoon to the entrepreneur Chiat Kwong Ching, from Singapore. The investigations concern the blind trust that manages Brugnaro's assets.
The Pili area, at the entrance of the Mestre-Venice translagoon bridge, is a lagoon area heavily polluted by the Marghera processing which was purchased by Brugnaro (not yet in politics at the time) in 2006, for around 5 million euros . He was the only participant in the State Property auction. Subsequently, however, with Brugnaro already mayor, the Pili area returned to the center of attention because it was identified in the new municipal urban sustainable mobility plan as a potential location for an intermodal terminal and a new sports hall. Projects that have exponentially increased its value. The company is now controlled by "Porta di Venezia", which is still headed by Brugnaro, but which, together with all the other companies and shareholdings of the mayor (from Umana to Reyer), has been in the hands of a blind trust of New York law to which the entrepreneur transferred his assets, once elected to Ca' Farsetti.
The Guardia di Finanza is currently investigating the mechanisms of the blind trust. This is also the chapter on which the opposition in the Municipality have insisted in recent years to accuse Brugnaro of a conflict of interests, due to his dual role as entrepreneur and mayor. The Rai3 program "Report" also recently dedicated an episode to this trend, talking about a negotiation, which later fell through, between Brugnaro and the entrepreneur Chiat Kwong Ching for the sale of the "Pili".
(Unioneonline/D)
