Chiara Ferragni could risk more than the loss of thousands of followers on social media. We are talking about criminal consequences. Why? The Milan prosecutor's office, one of those dealing with the Balocco case, is considering the possibility that the influencer may have had an operational role in the scandal, as detailed by La Stampa.
Finance investigations
In the Turin newspaper, in fact, it is reported that two of Ferragni's companies "have operationally outlined with Balocco the strategy that led consumers to mistakenly think that, by purchasing the Pink Christmas Pandoro in Christmas 2022, they would also have made a donation". This is what emerges from the documentation that the Guardia di Finanza has collected on behalf of the deputy prosecutor of Milan Eugenio Fusco, who heads the department that deals with fraud in trade.
The role of Ferragni's company
According to the Antitrust (which last December 14 imposed a fine of over 1 million euros on two of the digital entrepreneur's companies) Fenice Srl, one of the two Ferragni's companies involved, has "substantially imposed" on Balocco the line to follow: both on communication and operation. And so there would be the hand of Fenice srl behind the press release in which the sales of the pandoro were linked to the donation to the Turin hospital. A donation that, however, as is now known, had been closed months earlier with 50,000 euros.
What the influencer risks
Tbs Crew srl, the company that manages Ferragni's social media, hinted that Ferragni was directly active in the charity project. Based on these premises, Fusco (deputy prosecutor of Milan) could also attribute to Chiara Ferragni the crime of fraud in trade, a crime that concerns the quality of a product put on sale.
The prosecutors investigating
A file on the pink pandoro affair has also been opened by the magistrates of Trento. The chain reaction continues in the Italian prosecutors against the case concerning the Christmas sweet of Balocco branded Chiara Ferragni. The investigators of the capital of Trentino, like those of Cuneo and Prato, at the moment do not hypothesize crimes while in Milan - where no one has been investigated so far - the prosecutors have already delegated the investigations to the Guardia di Finanza since last December 19 and it is not excluded that in the next few days an investigation for fraud in trade may start. The proceedings, which could be followed by new ones in other prosecutors, started after the report presented by Codacons as well as in other 101 judicial offices and in which the crime of aggravated fraud to the detriment of consumers is hypothesized. The case concerns the purchase in 2022 of the Pink Christmas Pandoro which 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 pandoro put on sale last year at a price far higher than the market price: In the report, the consumer association recalls that by buying it "you could contribute to the donation and that Mrs. Ferragni participated in the initiative, a circumstance that turned out to be untrue"
The Milanese magistrates are therefore those who are currently in the most advanced phase of the exploratory investigation. The economic-financial police unit of Milan is acquiring, without an exhibition order, the papers collected by the antitrust in the affair. For the investigation, the competition authority, which imposed a maximulct of over one million euros, has indeed collected a lot of material and therefore the acquisition by the Gdf will still require several days. All the documentation, which makes up a bulky file, will then be examined by the Fiamme gialle who will draw up a report to be delivered to the prosecutor's office. The activity of the Milan prosecutors also concerns the Easter egg chapter of Dolci Preziosi.
The company based in Bari, which in recent days has clarified that it has no responsibility in the affair, had paid Ferragni a fee of 500,000 euros in 2021 and 700,000 euros in 2022, against a donation made independently by the same company of 36,000 euros to the 'I bambini delle Fatè' association. In this second case, however, the price of the Easter eggs was not increased, as happened for the pink pandoros. On social media, however, the irony and attack of thousands of users against Chiara Ferragni continues for about ten days, with memes and posts. So much so that the same influencer, after already apologizing on her profile about the Pink Christmas case, did not leave the house for several days until December 24, closing herself in silence. Her last appearance on Instagram, after the panettone case had exploded, was a video in which she admitted "a communication error", viewed by over forty million people.
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