Compiled 16 March, updated 19 March 2025
Francesco Pugliese at the Millemiglia
These fancy ‘outings’ by the former CEO of Conad – on the left in the photo above – took place while the drama of the laid-off workers was unfolding. You can find more of my notes at the end of the article with the comments of the former employees of Auchan, which was incorporated into Conad.
36 million euro seized: the purchase of Auchan supermarkets was also in the crosshairs. Pugliese, now president of the Piedmontese group Monviso, is also among the 9 under investigation
FILIPPO FIORINI
BOLOGNA. Tuscan cigars and Rolex Daytona. Mastroianni’s Triumph in La Dolce Vita to race the Millemiglia and the company for ‘fictitious consultancy services’, through which, according to the bylaws, ‘the managing director and the financial director are preparing their retirement’. A golden pension. Then, the business with the prejudiced broker [Raffaele Mincione] who, in cahoots with Cardinal Becciu, would have also swindled the Vatican in London. Wives, children and brothers involved. Transfers for services not rendered up to a total of 14.3 million euro. In exchange, real estate and transport paid over the odds to the corrupters, with company money. Above all, a seizure, yesterday morning, by the Bologna Finance Police, for over 36 million: the deal of the century on the Italians’ shopping, which led Conad to buy Auchan, overtaking Coop and becoming the national leader of supermarkets, is tainted, according to the Guardia Gialle and according to the Prosecutor’s Office of the capital of Emilia, by a bribery plot involving nine people, at the head of which were the former heads of the Margherita cooperative: Francesco Pugliese, now president of the Turin-based Monviso, and Mario Bosio.
The lawyers of Pugliese, who is under investigation along with his wife and son, say that the investigation ‘was a bolt out of the blue’ and are ‘convinced they can prove that there was no wrongdoing’. In addition to his top role in the famous biscuit producer in Andezeno (To), Pugliese is currently also a member of De Cecco ‘s board of directors. That of ‘lightning’ is a strange expression, given that Milano Finanza had discovered and written about the shadows hanging over the Mont Blanc operation (the purchase of Auchan by Conad, in fact), back in 2022. It was precisely from that article by Sergio Rizzo and the subsequent publications by the same journalist that perplexities arose in Conad’s board of directors, which first led the shareholders to ask the then CEO, Francesco Pugliese, for explanations and then, in the face of his repeated denials (despite the evidence that continued to emerge), to ask for his dismissal, which actually took place in 2023. Finally, to file the complaint from which the entire investigation by the Bologna public prosecutors, Caleca and Guido Guidi, stemmed.
Beyond the complexity of the financial offences circumstantiated by the public prosecutors and the GdF, who attach to their report the alleged false invoices, the transfers, the liquidation of the companies (once the transactions were discovered by the other shareholders in Conad) and much more, here we are talking, simplifying, about corruption between private individuals and the violation of the cooperative’s articles of association. In other words, millions of euro from the company were maliciously spent in exchange for bribes. The hypothesis is that Pugliese and Bosio created a false consultancy business to receive money from their bribes and that they also brought in their relatives. In exchange for this money, which they then spent on multi-million euro investments or on the 70,000 euro Triumph TR2 to race the Millemiglia, they would, for example, have allowed the Roman broker Raffaele Mincione to participate with Conad in the purchase of Auchan. From him alone, they would have received 11.3 million in bribes.
Year 2019, with 700 million euro Conad became the top Italian player and surpassed its archenemy Coop. The other members of the board of directors are frightened by the stratospheric losses that the French are making in Italy, which is prompting them to sell their licences and real estate. If they buy Auchan, they have to take them over. Pugliese introduces Mincione as a partner to soften the blow: he takes over the buildings and rents them to Conad. He is a broker whom the Guardia di Finanza today benevolently describes as ‘known to the chronicles’. He involved the Vatican in the purchase of the former Harrods department store in London. 200 million, paid by the Secretariat of State, by decision of Cardinal Angelo Becciu. According to a Report report, Mincione used that money in unsuccessful investments, including attempting a takeover of two Italian banks: Carige and Banca Popolare di Milano. The money burned in a pyre of lost bets and became smoke. To Becciu, the operation cost a conviction by the courts of the Oltretevere and removal from non-honorary posts. To Mincione, the same fate at first instance in the UK, which he appealed.
In the Board of Directors of Conad, the plaintiff in today’s investigation, at the time of the contested facts, they were surprised to see that when there was money to pay for Auchan, their company, but not their partner Mincione, disbursed it all. This, the bulk of the alleged fraud. But that’s not all. There are also the 3 million given to the consultancy firm of Pugliese, Bosio and family, to a refrigerated truck company, which offers Conad transport that the GdF judges to be overpriced. The limited company in question, in liquidation since an accountant hired by Conad’s board of directors discovered that it was owned by the managing director and financial director of their own cooperative, had been christened Ramaf: by sheer coincidence, the initials of the names Raffele, Mauro, Marco and Francesco, which the Bologna gip, Nadia Buttelli, put on the first page of the preventive seizure order she signed yesterday, alongside the surnames Mincione, Bosio, Candiani, Pugliese and others
In the investigation, more specifically, it would appear that Mincione paid EUR 11.3 million to Pugliese and Bosio for ‘false consultancy’. In exchange, as part of the operation of the French group Auchan’s shops by Conad, the former managers would have brought in a company linked to the broker’s group based in England. And as part of this operation, several properties and company shares were allegedly sold to Mincione’s funds for the symbolic sum of one euro.
The facts
The forty-two-page decree states: “With this operation, the properties were sold to real estate funds managed by the entrepreneur (Raffaele Mincione, editor’s note) and the consortium undertook to sell to the latter for one euro a substantial part of the share held in the vehicle company”
The investigators also emphasise another aspect. In order to ‘mislead’ about the flow of money, ‘the corrupt payments were invested in activities such as to hinder the reconstruction of their illicit origin’. Some examples? Recreational activities, such as participation in the historical ‘Mille Miglia’ event. Indeed, in order to compete, a car ‘was purchased with illicit profits’…
It might sound like the plot of a Totò film. It is a pity, however, that the story does not even make one smile because the ones who paid the consequences of this takeover were the thousands of families of the laid-off collaborators of whom La Stampa, even today, says nothing.
The affair has been going on for years, amidst complacent silences from Conad partners, politicians, trade unions and journalists (seasoned with intimidation to those who dared to write about it, like me and a few others).
As I have already had occasion to say: strange that Conad associates knew nothing!
