Electoral corruption and fraud, the mayor of Otranto and his brother arrested

There is also the mayor of Otranto in the province of Lecce, Pierpaolo Cariddi, elected last June, already subject to the obligation of the residence ban notified to him at the beginning of July as part of another investigation (the one on the alleged health-related affairs-politics), then suspended from office, and the former mayor Luciano Cariddi, brother of the former, among the ten people arrested this morning as part of the investigation conducted jointly by the carabinieri and the financial police of the Salento capital, together with provincial police officers. Both are in prison. The crime charged to administrators, public officials, entrepreneurs and freelancers is that of criminal association aimed at committing crimes against the Public Administration, public faith and the administration of justice, as well as in the field of electoral corruption, for acts contrary to official duties, fraud in criminal proceedings and misdirection, disturbed freedom of enchantments, fraud against the State and the European Community and more. Under the investigators’ lens some administrative measures such as building permits, in particular in the tourism sector, the construction of parking lots and the covered market, and public funding requested by the Municipality of Otranto also from the European Union. The provision by which the investigating judge of the Lecce court, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, orders 8 house arrest and two in prison, is 900 pages long. There are 60 people under investigation in the investigation. In recent days, Pierpalo Cariddi was sentenced in the first instance by the Lecce court to three years and nine months of imprisonment, as the designer of the Twiga bathhouse under construction on the north coast of the Idruntina coast before being seized in June 2017. Slightly milder the conviction for the entrepreneur Raffaele De Santis (president of Federalberghi Lecce). The latter would also be involved in the investigation that led to the arrests this morning.