Pisa: fake fortune teller arrested for fraud and abusive practice of the profession

A 58-year-old woman from Pisa was arrested by the financial police in execution of a precautionary custody order under house arrest because she was accused of having practiced the profession of fortune teller by defrauding some customers resident in the province of Pisa. The woman is also under investigation for illegal practice of the medical profession: she was allegedly "paid also for consulting medical reports, formulating diagnoses and prescribing drugs, making use, for this purpose, of prescription books made available by a compliant doctor and his assistant, both resident in the province of Florence", for this reason both in turn are being investigated in conjunction with the 58-year-old.

The investigations, carried out by the financiers of the Pisa Group, coordinated by the Pisan prosecutor's office, a note explains, would have established that the 58-year-old, "who professed to be an expert in magic and boasted divinatory and esoteric abilities, took advantage of the state of vulnerability of her clients, mostly suffering from health problems or in precarious economic conditions, inducing them to pay her large sums of money in exchange for a promise of help". In particular, the outcome of the investigations made it possible to hypothesize that the fortune teller, thanks to the complicity of her partner, also from Pisa, "generated in the victims the fear of imaginary dangers and proposed, as the only solution to ward off the 'negativities', the use of magic and 'purification' rituals, such as, for example, making the person stand at the center of circles of fire created on the floor in such a way that the flames would allow the flames to burn and eliminate the 'negative energies' held responsible for the difficulties experienced".

Those in financial difficulty, on the other hand, were convinced "to hand over money with the promise of investments both in the world of finance and in the oil sector, making people believe that some absolutely reliable figures, who turned out to be non-existent, would guarantee them the successful outcome of the financial operations, which in reality never happened".

The profit so far reconstructed by the Gdf, which is also the subject of tax dispute as illicit proceeds, amounts to approximately 230,000 euros.