ROME, March 16 (Xinhua) -- The waste of public money and procurement fraud cost Italy some 5.3 billion euros (5.68 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016, Italian finance police said Thursday in a report.
The figure was unveiled in the annual report released by Italy's Guardia di Finanza (GdF), which is the police unit assigned to countering fiscal and financial crimes in the country.
It marked a sharp rise compared to a total 4 billion euros of wasted public resources registered in 2015.
The increase was particularly clear with respect to procurement fraud in public contracts, which amounted to 3.4 billion euros last year against 1 billion euros in 2015.
Some 1,866 people were charged, and 140 arrested, for these crimes. Over 775 million euros of both national and European public funds were unlawfully drawn, the police report also stated.
Overall, the GdF launched almost 4,000 investigations related to crimes against public administration, and 4,272 people were either reported to judiciary or arrested. The frauds uncovered within the national health and welfare system totalled 158 million euros.
Some 2.6 billion euros in various assets, 281 companies, and counterfeit goods worth 2.4 billion euros were overall seized to mafia organizations, the report added.
In countering fiscal crime last year, the GdF uncovered 8,343 people who fully dodged taxes, and seized 781 million euros over allegations of international tax frauds.
Taxpayers in Italy were 40.8 millions out of a population of 60.66 million in 2016, official statistics showed.
Finally, Italy's finance police reported over 21,500 dubious financial transactions last year, some 570 of which were possibly linked to financing international terrorism, the GdF said.
