Phone calls between Bossi’s secretary and Belsito: “Tell Umberto: if I talk, you’ll end up arrested”
Thursday, 12 April 2012
Houses, a Porsche, and Degrees on the List of Hand-outs to the Bossi Family.
Houses, a Porsche, and Degrees on the List of Hand-outs to the Bossi Family.
Phone calls between Bossi’s secretary and Belsito: “Tell Umberto: if I talk, you’ll end up arrested”
MILAN - A long series of phone calls, tapped by carabinieri of the NOE ecological operational unit in February, for the public prosecutor’s office in Naples, saw Francesco Belsito, the Northern League treasurer under investigation, complaining to the party’s administrative assistant Nadia Dagrada, who is not currently involved in the inquiries. “He talked about all the gifts handed out to Bossi and to the deputy speaker of the Senate, Rosy Mauro”. She was told to “make copies of all the documents proving the payments made to them and to hide the originals in a safe-deposit box”, Moreover, he “mentioned that he was in possession of copious documentation and a compromising recording for the Northern League”.
Tell Bossi: if I talk, you’ll end up arrested
The conversations took place on the eve of Belsito being summoned to Rome by Bossi, which the former interpreted, also on the basis of Rosy Mauro’s icy comment (“it looks nasty”), as a sign of his impending defenestration as Northern League treasurer. This was due to pressure in the party, in his opinion especially from Castelli and Stiffoni, to oust him as a result of media reports that he had invested millions of euros of election grant money in Tanzania.
But as Dagrada, who is in charge of party merchandise, pointed out to Belsito, Tanzania was nothing in comparison: “Tell him [Bossi]: ‘boss, I have to make this clear: if this lot get their hands on the party accounts, they’ll see your wife’s, and your sons’ expenses, and the Northern League will be done for (...)’. Tell him how things stand: ‘maybe you don’t realize, but if I talk, you’ll end up arrested or strung up in the Northern League headquarters’”.
The carabinieri’s summary of the list that the two of them produce over the phone just before midday on 26 February includes “the cost of fixing the award of three degrees, paid for with party money”, and “money for arranging a high school diploma for Renzo Bossi”. Then there is the sum of “670,000 euros in 2011 for which Nadia says there is no documentation, in addition to other large amounts for other years”; “cars rented for Riccardo Bossi, including a Porsche”; “the costs for settling Riccardo Bossi’s injunctions”; “other expenses, some also dating back to the term of office of the previous treasurer, Balocchi”; and “rent for a house in Brescia”. Last but not least is the sum of “300,000 euros for the Bosina school in Varese for [Bossi’s wife,] Manuela Marrone, that Belsito is unable to justify, taken in 2011 to obtain a mortgage, that he stashed away in a safe-deposit box”.
The “liquid costs” of Renzo’s boys
In further phone calls, the list grows, with “50,000 euros for the son’s latest car... yes, of course I have the invoice!”, not to mention “the ‘liquid costs’ of Renzo’s boys”, an epithet that perhaps refers to the men in his escort, that Belsito remembered amounting to “151,000 euros”. Dagrada corrected him: “No, wait a moment - 251,000 euros for the boys, but that doesn’t include hotel bills, and I can’t work out what they come to when they’re travelling with him: they’re part of the total sum, but it’s impossible to track down all the invoices”. There is also the house in Gemonio, and to be precise, “the money still to be given for improvements to the terrace”: “As far as I’m aware, it comes to 5,000-6,000 euros”, Belsito told Dagrada, who was afraid that the figure was much higher, also because of the suppliers’ threats of legal action. Dagrada also reminded him, however, that “You have to tell him [i.e. Bossi]: ‘don’t forget, there’s your son’s car on top of that’”.
Francs and euros for Rosy Mauro
Belsito ironically commented on his rivals in the party, who didn’t do anything because they also had a vested interest in his survival: “Do you know how much I gave the Indian [i.e. Rosy Mauro] the other day? Almost 29,000 euros: 29,142 in francs, and ...do you want to know about all the other money before that?”. Investigators interpret this as meaning “the other sums of money I give her on a monthly basis”, and the “200,000-300,000 euros given to the Northern League trade union SINPA”, whose “accounts have been manipulated”.
The party employee Dagrada took her cue from Rosy Mauro’s attitude and advised Belsito to tell the deputy speaker of the Senate that “’If I start talking, the party leader is finished, and if he’s finished, that means the end for you too’ ... Because if she hasn’t got him to defend her any more, she’ll be thrown out on the street, and who knows in what state”. Dagrada hoped the treasurer would spell it out to Bossi: “Tell him: ‘we maintain your son Riccardo, and your son Renzo’. Tell him: ‘look, you don’t pay your dues, and nor does your son, and haven’t done since you were ill’. You have to tell him: ‘look, boss, I know all about it, and as long as I’m here, I’ll never betray you, but just remember what’s at stake, because if it all comes out in the open, you know what might happen, and the grassroots activists will be the least of your problems’”.
“I have a recording and documents as evidence”
So does Bossi risk being blackmailed? It doesn’t look that way, at least on the basis of what the two of them said on the night of 8 February. Nadia Dagrada suggested “It’s not as though you have to blackmail him”; rather, you have to make it clear to Bossi that “party activists are more worried about Rosy being unmasked than the Tanzania affair”.
Belsito was clearly preparing to defend himself if he found himself with his back to the wall, and said he had proof: “I’ll tell investigators what they wanted me to do, I’ll tell them about the Foundation and... that I was asked to give them money”. Dagrada replied: “Yes! But did you record the conversation?”. “Yes,” replied Belsito. And Dagrada concluded: “Then confront the two women [Rosy Mauro and Manuela Marrone]... the Tanzania business is nothing compared to what the activists will do to them! Tell them: ‘they won’t be coming after me; they’ll be after you two!’”.
5 aprile 2012 | 17:10
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