A public aqueduct on the verge of being “given” to one private firm for the realization of a hydroelectric power plant. A company effectively represented by a person convicted in Spain of fraud on community contributions, ready to secure one twenty-year concession. The story of the management of renewable energy on the Black river, the most important tributary of the Tiber, known for its propensity to build power plants that can exploit the strength of the watercourse and the steep path. The protagonist is the entrepreneur from the Marches Luigi Biego, which in 2016 submitted two requests for authorizations to the Marche region for the assignment of as many sections of theAqueduct of the Nera, in order to build hydroelectric plants in the locality Gallano e Fornaci Gallery, both in the municipality of Pieve Torina, in the province of Macerata. It is a safe investment. For the Gallano plant, for example, the expense of 780.000 euro it is recovered in just over 3 years, in anticipation of a turnover of over 220,000 euros a year. All profit, considering practically zero management costs.
The problem is that at the time of the single authorization applications presented in the Region, dated October 17 and November 15, 2016, Biego signed a declaration in which he assured that “no sentences of conviction legally binding, or sentences for the application of the penalty upon request (…) for crimes affecting the moral reliability and professional “. In reality it doesn’t seem to be that way. The 25 February 2013, the criminal court of Madrid issued a sentence – which became final on 24 July 2014 – condemning a 5 months in prison (suspended sentence) against Biego, for fraud of European grants and falsification of commercial and official documents. With this falsification, according to what is read in the documents, the entrepreneur would have obtained from EU Commission a loan of 1.035.849 euro, an action which led the Spanish authorities to impose a fine of an almost equivalent amount. The fine was appealed by the entrepreneur’s lawyers in Cassation, but the appeal was rejected. The Spanish criminal sentence, as mentioned, has been final since 2014, it has been suspended and converted into a fine. And as we learn from the documents in possession, the Marche Region, the Società Per l’Acquedotto del Nera Spa and theAato3 have been made aware of the documents.
“It is a very long story, I prefer not to comment,” said Luigi Biego, contacted by Ilfattoquotidiano.it. But on his omission he says: “Fortunately I have nothing to do with it”. Yet even on this statement something does not add up. Applications for authorization were forwarded to the Marche Region representing the 500 srls, a company of which Biego was director, legal representative in 2016, while the shares were assigned to his children Enrico e Claudia. The initial mission was “teaching foreign languages and cultures in all their forms”. Only after the Nace code has been adapted to the production of energy from renewable sources. Over the years, however, several changes have occurred in the corporate structure. First the sale to the trust company Melio Trust srl, then the repurchase of the shares by his wife and children, then the liquidation of 500 srls (liquidator Luigi Biego himself) and finally the sale of company branches to 16 srls and 19 srls, the two companies that have also inherited the request for the management of hydroelectric plants.
Both new companies are managed by Enrico and Claudia, as we learn from the most recent surveys, carried out byDecember 8, 2020. Yet, in the meetings in the Region that have taken place during these four years, as also emerges from the minutes, the company is always represented by father Luigi, who also leaves his contact details. On the other hand, there is no trace of the two scions, except in the records of the signatures. “I still do not want to comment, our lawyer looks after all”, says the entrepreneur, who however does not provide the contacts of the lawyer. In a letter of 10 October, the Marche Region had announced rejection notice, per technical reasons and not for the question of the criminal sentence, on which the Entity does not express itself. Instead Aato3 on 1 December, on the eve of the meeting of the service conferences, asked for a suspension of 60 days, expressing its intention to “reach a positive conclusion of the procedure “.
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It will be interesting to see what ultimately becomes of the project.