Refund scam for the blue car, trial requested for Roberto Occhiuto

The Rome Public Prosecutor's Office has requested the indictment of the President of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto, for aggravated fraud in relation to the investigation concerning the reimbursements for the blue car.

"Anyone who thought they could use this story to stop me doesn't know me," the governor reacts in a video released on social media, explaining that he has not yet received any communication. "If you really think - he reiterates - that you can stop me in this way, you are wrong because I am moving forward".

The accusatory hypothesis concerns the monthly reimbursements, equal to 3,893 euros, that Occhiuto would have received from the Calabria Region for the use of a car, an Audi Q4, intended for carrying out his institutional functions despite having, according to the investigators, another car, an Audi Q6, taken from the Region through a leasing contract.

Occhiuto, before the prosecutors, defended himself by supporting the legitimacy of the monthly allowance even after the purchase of the car by the Region, having also asked for clarifications and received reassurances from the regional offices.

The governor also made clarifications on the period disputed by the investigators. According to Occhiuto, the overlap between car and allowance occurred only for a limited period: 15 days in January 2024 and then from November 2024, when the car was leased by the Region, until the summer of 2025. But from 2021 to 2024, Occhiuto claimed, "I used cars owned exclusively by me or leased to me for use: two Q8 cars, an Audi A6 and an Audi Q8".

Occhiuto reconstructed the story in a video released on his social channels: "I should receive a request for indictment because I would have used the Region's service car, sometimes, not for personal matters, but to go and carry out inspections, to go to the construction sites of the public works that I built while managing billions in this Region. They tell me that I could not have used that service car because, like the other regional councilors, I received part of the allowance for mobility in the region. In short, petty things that I will clarify very well in the preliminary hearing".

In the video Occhiuto says he is "angry". "I have felt tortured for a year and a half - he states - when I received, for the first time in my life, a notice of warranty and I was shocked, like anyone who receives it and has never done anything wrong".