Judge orders house arrest for Coima boss and others in Milan property probe
A court statement said judge Mattia Fiorentini ordered the house arrest of the former councillor for urban planning, the head of real estate firm Coima and three others, and jailed a sixth suspect, a builder.
Coima, one of Italy's biggest developers, issued a statement "taking note" of the measure against its founder Manfredi Catella, and said that, in response, the powers of other board members had been expanded to ensure business continuity.
Catella and Giancarlo Tancredi, a member of the Milan city council, are both under investigation for alleged bribery. Tancredi resigned from his post after the prosecutor's office filed requests for his arrest.
Tancredi was not immediately available for comment on Thursday's decision.
The Milan property market began booming in 2015, when the Expo international exhibition helped to transform the city into a hot spot for developers from Italy and abroad.
But complaints from local residents objecting to a sharp increase in multi-storey buildings triggered investigations into alleged abuses in the fast-tracking of building permits, stalling construction activity.
Milan prosecutors had requested the arrest of the six suspects on July 16, and all of them appeared before the judge on July 23 to be questioned and present their defence.
The judge found that there was serious evidence of guilt and a risk of reoffending, according to the court statement.
According to court documents, prosecutors said their investigations "have brought to light a system .... whose purpose is to facilitate the issuance of illegal building permits and to carry out highly speculative real estate transactions".
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