Chiara Ferragni and the 'Pandoro-gate': Legal Team Denies Any Wrongdoing

"No to the massacre game on Chiara Ferragni. The influencer and entrepreneur's lawyers are confident they can provide all the necessary clarifications to the investigators who are investigating the Balocco pandoro case. The latest to have opened a file - after those of Milan, Cuneo and Prato - is the Trento Prosecutor's Office. This is - the Adige daily newspaper specifies - a knowledge file, i.e. without any hypothesis of crime and without suspects, opened after the complaint filed by the Codacons following the Antitrust fine that condemns the companies involved for 'unfair commercial practice'. The Codacons, last December 18, sent a complaint in which it also involves the Trento and Bolzano Prosecutors' Offices, as well as another 104 throughout Italy, and asks to open investigations into the territory for the possible case of aggravated fraud to the detriment of consumers. Ferragni's legal team, speaking to LaPresse, denies the existence of crimes. After the 'social' storm, and not only, that overwhelmed her in the days before Christmas, the 'pandoro gate' risks having a long judicial tail for the influencer Chiara Ferragni. After that of Milan which on December 19 opened a file delegating the investigations to the Guardia di Finanza, now also the Prato Prosecutor's Office has turned a spotlight on the affair by initiating a procedure, at the moment without suspects or hypothesis of crime. A legal initiative to the complaint filed by the Codacons as well as in other 101 judicial offices and in which the crime of aggravated fraud to the detriment of consumers is hypothesized. A due act that of the Tuscan prosecutor's office for a now well-known affair: the purchase, in 2022, of the Pandoro Pink Christmas would have contributed to a donation in favor of the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin. A charitable activity already carried out by Balocco, the company that produced the Ferragni-branded Christmas cake, put on sale last year at a price far higher than the market one. In the complaint, the consumer association recalls that 'by buying the pandoro you could contribute to the donation and that Mrs. Ferragni participated in the initiative, a circumstance that turned out not to be true'. The Prato procedure therefore travels parallel with the one started days ago in Milan. The Milanese magistrates have entrusted the investigations to the Guardia di Finanza. The Yellow Flames, as part of the investigative activity, have also provided for the acquisition of documents at the Antitrust. In particular, in the file, in which the crime of fraud in commerce could be hypothesized, will end the papers relating to the investigation which ended with a maxi fine for unfair commercial practice both for the two companies of the Cremona entrepreneur and for the Piedmontese confectionery company, which moreover recorded losses from the promotional campaign of the pink pandoro. The activity of the Milanese public prosecutors also concerns the Easter eggs chapter of Dolci Preziosi. The company based in Bari, which in recent days has clarified that it has no responsibility in the matter, had paid Ferragni a fee of 500 thousand euros in 2021 and 700 thousand euros in 2022, against a donation made autonomously by the same company of 36 thousand euros to the association 'I bambini delle Fate'. Fedez's wife in one of the social posts, then deleted, had written a message inviting to use 'Easter to do good', adding that it was a 'special project' in favor of a 'company (...) that since 2005 has been supporting families with autism and other disabilities'. In this second case, however, the price of the Easter eggs was not increased, as happened for the 'pink' pandoros.