Milan prosecutors have requested that
an investigation into six people, three Italians and three
Russians, regarding alleged negotiations for Russian funding for
Italy's League party be shelved, daily newspaper La Verità
reported on Tuesday.
The case centred on a meeting at Moscow's Metropol hotel in
October 2018 which the parties involved allegedly discussed
siphoning off 65
million euros from the profits of an oil sale transaction.
The negotiation seems to have come to nothing as no evidence of
money changing hands was found.
The Italians probed for allegedly international corruption in
relation to the case are Gianluca Savoini, the former spokesman
of League leader and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini, and
the head of the Lombardy-Russia association; a lawyer, Gianluca
Meranda; and a former banker, Francesco Vannucci.
The Russians are Ilya Andreevich Yakunin and former Russian
secret service agent, Andrey Yuryevich Kharchenko, both linked
to "far-right demagogue" Aleksandr Dugin and to Vladimir
Pligin, a politician close to Russian
President Vladimir Putin, and Yury Burundukov, a figure linked
to the oligarch Konstantin Malofeev.
Milan prosecutors had made requests to the Russian authorities
to speak to people involved in the case but got no reply.
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