The Balocco pandoro designed by Chiara Ferragni, which had colored Christmas 2022 pink, has now ended up at the center of an investigation for aggravated fraud. This is the crime for which the Milan Prosecutor’s Office has registered the most famous digital entrepreneur in Italy in the register of suspects, who has already been overwhelmed by a real media storm for weeks. What she herself had defined as a “communication error”, that is, having made consumers believe that the proceeds from the sales of the “Pink Christmas” pandoro would be donated to charity, could instead be a scam in all respects.
Furthermore, with the aggravating circumstance of impaired defence, i.e. a condition of vulnerability of consumers due, essentially, to the advantages gained by the perpetrator of the crime via the network. “I am calm – the influencer said in a note – because I have always acted in good faith and I am sure that this will emerge from the ongoing investigations”. In addition to her, Alessandra Balocco, president and CEO of the sweets company, who succeeded her brother Alberto last year, who died in a tragic accident (he was struck by lightning) in August 2022, is also under investigation.
After weeks in which the Milanese officials were working on the case without any hypothesis of crime or suspects, the turning point came yesterday. The information filed on Monday morning at the Prosecutor’s Office by the Financial Police, which had been tasked with collecting the documents acquired by the Antitrust and some emails between the confectionery group and the entrepreneur, was decisive. The prosecutor Eugenio Fusco decided to proceed with the registration of the two names, a criminal initiative which is in addition to the 1 million fine that had already been inflicted on the two Ferragni companies by the market regulator.
“AVAILABLE”
«I have full faith in the activity of the judiciary – declared the businesswoman – and I immediately made myself available with my lawyers to collaborate and clarify every detail of what happened in the shortest possible time. I am, however, deeply disturbed by the exploitation that some of the media is carrying out, even by spreading news that is objectively untrue.” After the “Instagram stories” published on Sunday, when she took the children on horseback, everything is silent again on her social profiles. Chiara Ferragni and Alessandra Balocco, as well as the respective teams that handled the various operations for the launch of the famous pandoro, will be summoned in the next few days to the offices of the Milan Prosecutor’s Office to be able to provide their versions of the matter. Also yesterday, the Fiamme Gialle showed up at the headquarters of the Balocco company in Fossano, in the Cunense area, to acquire further documents.
The pandoro, which at Christmas 2022 had become famous for its particular pink icing sugar, had been sold at a higher price, suggesting that the proceeds would be allocated to the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin and in particular to the purchase of new machinery for sick children. A misleading and incorrect advertisement, according to the Antitrust, since – also according to what emerged from the information filed yesterday – the donation to the healthcare facility had already taken place the previous May, and amounted to only 50 thousand euros. Furthermore, the influencer had advertised the product on social media for a fee of one million.
The aggravating circumstance of the impaired defense, given precisely by the online sponsorship of the pandori, allowed the crime of fraud to be contested even in the absence of complaints from consumers. Another possibility that emerged in recent days was that of the crime of commercial fraud, for which the complaint sent by Codacons to 104 Italian prosecutor’s offices would have been sufficient. The crime she was accused of involves “through artifice or deception” that “unjust profit is obtained to the detriment of others.” It is not excluded that other products sold by the influencer for charitable purposes could soon end up in the sights of investigators. Among these, the Dolci Preziosi Easter eggs, the proceeds of which went to an association that supports autistic children, and the Trudi dolls sold in favor of the non-profit organization Stomp Out Bullying.
THE EFFECT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
The spread of the news of the fine, in the middle of last December, had already been a hard blow for the digital entrepreneur. After the famous apology video, in which she wore a gray tracksuit and an apparently modest look, published last December 18, Ferragni disappeared from social media. No longer a post or a story, much less photos in collaboration with the various brands. Over two weeks of silence which ended last Wednesday, at the end of the holidays. Chiara returned with a selfie and a message for her followers, to whom she said that she had missed them. But many digital followers fled after the scandal broke. Of course, not such a large number compared to the overall number (29.5 million users follow Ferragni on social media) but we are still talking about almost 200 thousand people who abandoned her in a few days.
2024-01-09 00:35:10
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