Searches were also carried out in Rimini as part of an investigation by the Ravenna Public Prosecutor’s Office into alleged fake medical certificates used to avoid the detention of foreign nationals in Cpr facilities, the centres for migrant repatriation.
The operation, led by the Ravenna Mobile Squad and the State Police’s Central Operations Service with support from the police headquarters involved, targets more than twenty professionals, almost all doctors, most of whom, according to reports, are not currently under formal investigation.
Besides Rimini, checks were also carried out in Bari, Biella, Bologna, Florence, Livorno, Milan, Rome and Varese. Investigators are working to determine whether a network for producing fraudulent health certificates existed, through which health conditions incompatible with detention in Cpr centres may have been falsely certified.
The investigation is ongoing and will need to establish the roles and responsibilities of the professionals involved, as well as the possible scale of the phenomenon.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini and the leader of the Brothers of Italy group in the Chamber of Deputies, Galeazzo Bignami, have also weighed in on the case, calling for full transparency and for any responsibilities to be ascertained.
