Qatargate- After Morocco & Qatar, now Mauritania – Corriere

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By Giuseppe Guastella – For Corriere – Money that arrives in cash from Qatar and Morocco with methods from drug traffickers, meetings in Paris during which ties and clothes are spoken in code to mean wads of banknotes, and after close contacts with Morocco and Qatar now a “contract” with Mauritania appears. 

Francesco Giorgi’s statements to Belgian magistrates after his arrest for Qatargate filled pages with minutes, also because Eva Kaili’s companion could not deny what the secret services knew about him and Panzeriafter following and intercepting them for months. The excerpts of the minutes published today by Il Fatto Quotidiano confirm the information of the first moment: it is an investigation born and managed by the 007 of Brussels on the NGO Figth impunity founded by Panzeri which immediately turned out to be a sort of paid agency of relations with European parliamentarians which was scrambling to obtain a favorable attitude with the clients of the European institution. At the moment, the organization aimed at corruption and money laundering accused by Greek magistrates sees Panzeri and Giorgi as the corruptors who would have given money it is not yet known to which public official, who inevitably must be a European parliamentarian to make the accusation legally hold. 

It emerges that the investigation of the Belgian secret services begins in the spring and culminates on April 26 with the intrusion into Panzeri’s house where 700 thousand euros are counted, everything that could be interesting is photographed and bugs and cameras are installed. The result can be read in the information of the Vsse of Brussels attached to the documents. Panzeri and Giorgi “use coded language by hiding money in their apartments”, write 007 who speak of a “deal worth several million euros”. Giorgi reveals to the magistrates that as far as Qatar is concerned, there was “the Algerian”, man , who put him in contact with a Palestinian in Turkey who passed him and another subject in Belgium. That’s how the cash arrived.” The total was variable, it’s difficult for me to estimate, they were the ones who decided,” he says. 

He was careful not to leave traces, he deleted contact numbers from his mobile phone. For the Belgian justice in favor of Morocco was also active the Pd MEP (suspended) Andrea Cozzolino, who replaced Panzeri in the delegation and por the Maghreb when in 2019 the second was not re-elected. The same scheme worked with Morocco through the ambassador to Poland Abderrahim Atmo, who “occasionally brought money but not on a regular basis. They were amounts of a few tens of thousands of euros. I estimate the total sum at 50,000 euros,” says Giorgi, adding that “He came to Brussels, or we went to Paris, to his house, to his apartment. When we went to get money, we said we were going to get ties or suits.” 

There is also a trip to Morocco with the Panzeri family, probably that of the gifts mentioned in another article on this site. Finally, a similar activity emerges in favor of Mauritania for which Giorgi would have been paid by receiving a rent, it would seem fictitious, for his apartment of 1,500 euros per month plus 300 of expenses, while Panzeri would have collected “25 thousand euros in cash”.

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