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Finance Police News

13 Mar 2023

Thirty Migrants Missing in Shipwreck off Libya. Charity Blames Italy

© Carlo Toffolo/AdobeStock

Thirty people are missing and 17 were rescued in the central Mediterranean on Sunday after the boat in which they were travelling from Libya capsized in bad weather, Italy's coastguard said.The tragedy comes just weeks after a Feb. 26 shipwreck near the southern region of Calabria, in which at least 79 died. Alarm Phone, a charity that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, assumed the 30 people were dead and blamed Italy for not sending its coastguard despite being repeatedly alerted on Saturday that the boat was in trouble."Clearly…

28 Feb 2023

Italy: Police Arrest Three Alleged Traffickers after Fatal Migrant Boat Wreck

Wooden boat that smashed apart on rocks off southern Italy on Sunday - Credit: Italian Coast Guard - Screenshot

Italy has arrested three people who they believe trafficked up to 200 migrants aboard a wooden boat that smashed apart on rocks off southern Italy on Sunday, killing at least 64 people, police said on Tuesday. Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Lippolis said a Turkish man and two Pakistani nationals had sailed the boat from Turkey to Italy despite the terrible weather, and were identified by survivors as "the main culprits of the tragedy"."According to initial investigations, they allegedly asked the migrants for about 8…

06 Nov 2019

Italy Police Search Shipbuilding Firms Linked to Fincantieri

File Image: Fincantieri

Italian finance police searched offices of several companies working for state-controlled shipbuilder Fincantieri, as part of an investigation into suspected corruption, fraud and worker exploitation, the prosecutor's office in Venice said on Wednesday.The prosecutor added in a statement that 34 people were under investigation for alleged "systematic exploitation" of foreign workers - mainly from Bangladesh and Albania - in shipyards in the port city of Marghera, close to Venice, working on orders for Fincantieri.The searches involved 19 different companies in seven different Italian regions a

09 Aug 2018

Italy Uncovers Massive Load of Hash in Ship's Fuel Tanks

Italian police said on Thursday they found 20 tonnes of hash worth as much as 200 million euros ($232 million) in the fuel tanks of a Panama-flagged ship that was stopped in international waters and escorted to Sicily.The entire 11-person crew, all from Montenegro, was arrested for international drugs trafficking, Italy's finance police said in a statement.The research and survey vessel Remus left the Canary Islands bound for Egypt and Turkey, but police surveillance showed it had turned off its position transmitter near the coast of North Africa, raising investigators' suspicions.With the permission of Panamanian authorities, Italian finance police seized the vessel in international waters on July 31 and escorted it to Palermo.

18 Oct 2017

Italy Breaks up Libyan Fuel Smuggling Ring

Sicilian police on Wednesday sought the arrest of nine people, including a suspected mobster, for running a Libyan fuel-smuggling ring in which at least 30 million euros ($35 million) of diesel was sold in gas stations in Italy and Europe. A Libyan, nicknamed the "boss", used small boats to steal fuel from a refinery in Zawiya, a port city west of Tripoli, a statement from the finance police said. The fuel, stolen from Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC), was then transferred to a larger ship off the coast of Malta and brought to Italy. Police from the Sicilian city of Catania "documented in detail 30 voyages in which more than 80 million kilos of diesel fuel was imported," the statement said.

06 May 2016

Italy Rescues Nearly 1,800 Migrants in Mediterranean

Italian vessels have helped rescue nearly 1,800 migrants from boats trying to reach Italy from north Africa in the last 24 hours, the navy said on Friday, indicating that numbers are rising as the weather warms up. The navy said 1,759 migrants were rescued in 10 operations involving the Italian navy, coastguard and finance police, the European Union's external borders agency Frontex and the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres. The Italian frigate Grecale was taking the migrants to the Sicilian port of Augusta, where they were expected to arrive on Saturday morning, a navy statement said. It gave no details of their nationalities.

16 Oct 2015

Italian Police Find Hashish Stowed in Cargo Ship Hull

Italian police found more than 20 tonnes of hashish with an estimated street value of 200 million euros ($230 million) hidden in the hull of a cargo ship, a statement said on Friday. Acting on a tip, finance police -- who help oversee border security -- boarded the ship at sea and diverted it to the port of Cagliari in Sardinia, where they spent more than 18 days searching before finally finding the drugs, according to a statement. During the search, police used cranes to move enormous blocks of granite carried by the Jupiter cargo ship, which is registered in the Cook Islands. They eventually found 821 packages of hashish weighing a total of 20.5 tonnes in a ballast tank in the bow of the ship. The ship's captain and nine crew members, all Syrian, were arrested, the statement said.

14 May 2015

Italy Reports 3,600 Migrant Rescues in 2 Days

Almost 3,600 migrants have been rescued from overcrowded boats sailing from Africa to Europe over the past 48 hours, Italy said on Thursday, with sea conditions seen as perfect for attempting the crossing. As more than 600 migrants were brought ashore at the port of Catania in Sicily, rescuers plucked another 2,500 from rickety boats off the coast of Libya, the coast guard said. Most of those who arrived in Catania had been picked up by the British warship HMS Bulwark and were Somali and Nigerian, port officials said. With Libya engulfed in strife, people smugglers are increasingly free to pack migrants onto unsafe boats, and they are expected to push total arrivals in Italy for 2015 to 200,000, an increase of 30,000 on last year, according to an Interior Ministry projection.

17 Dec 2012

Italian Shipyared Gains RINA Certification

RINA-Fincantieri ISO 14001 Presentation

Fincantieri's Muggiano shipyard awarded RINA "Environmental Protection" certification under ISO 14001. The yard in Riva Trigoso (Genoa), which together with Muggiano forms Fincantieri's specialist naval shipbuilding centre, is expected to be certified within the next month. In order to qualify for ISO 14001 certification, applicants must, amongst other things,  draw up programs to improve their systems that manage environmental aspects and the related impacts, and they must introduce internal guidelines and controls to regulate and monitor activities from an environmental perspective.