Rome Public Prosecutor’s Office has uncovered alleged bribery and illicit visa trafficking among staff at the Italian Embassy in Bangladesh.
The apparent corruption came to light after staff unsuccessfully tried to bribe an MP with the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, Andrea Di Giuseppe, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. He was reportedly offered €2 million and an earnings percentage per migrant successfully entered into Italy.
Rather than accepting the money, Di Giuseppe recorded the attempt at corruption and contacted the prosecutors.
The scheme of illegally selling work visas was allegedly orchestrated by a Bangladeshi entrepreneur and restaurant owner in Rome who sought institutional connections to facilitate immigration from Bangladesh.
Three Italian consular officials in Dhaka allegedly became his accomplices, demanding bribes in the form of cash, high-end electronics, luxury watches and all-expenses-paid trips to Dubai together with airline tickets and various payments in favour of friends and relatives of officials in exchange for issuing work visas, according to the Rome prosecutors.
According to the prosecutors, the suspects had an “immense turnover consumed at the expense of immigrants, forced to pay exorbitant sums” for visas.
Visa were sold for up to €15,000, although the Bangladeshi visa recipients often discovered the promised jobs were non-existent, they added.
In some cases, fictitious contracts were created with non-existent companies to justify applying for visas.
This was possible due to a lack of checking with the immigration desk in Rome, where the computer system did not require substantial verification, Italian media reported. This allowed the suspects to present altered or completely false documents.
The fraud allegedly primarily operated through the Italian Embassy in Dhaka, with investigators uncovering suspected collusion from officials at the Prefecture of Rome. They had apparently accepted bribes to expedite visa clearances.
The investigation also revealed what appeared to be suspicious connections to the Prefecture of Naples.
The implicated consular staff included two key figures: the former head of the visa sector at the Italian Embassy in Bangladesh and a former embassy official who had been responsible for processing visa applications in Dhaka before being transferred to Turkey. Both had direct access to the visa application system, according to prosecutors.
On February 19, Italian authorities apprehended five suspects, including the officials.
The two public officials were said to be under house arrest. Two Bangladeshis were in prison, accused of incitement to corruption, corruption and aggravated aiding and abetting illegal immigration.
According to the investigating judge, the suspects allegedly organised an illegal activity “hateful, serious, of taking advantage of people in a situation of impaired defence and poor economic possibilities”.
In Germany, also on February 19, a similar case emerged, as several politicians from the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Socialist Party (SPD) were suspected of taking bribes in exchange for visas.
They were accused of taking up to €10.000 per illegally entered family head from a gang of smugglers.
