Five arrested for referee-directed sports fraud

Carabinieri and finance police involved in Operation Penalty

REGGIO CALABRIA – Since the early hours of Wednesday, October 29, 2025, the Carabinieri of the Reggio Calabria provincial command and the financial police of the Guardia di Finanza's Special Currency Police Unit have executed a precautionary house arrest order issued by the Reggio Calabria court against five individuals under investigation for the crime of criminal conspiracy to commit sports fraud. The investigation, coordinated by the Reggio Calabria Public Prosecutor's Office, headed by Prosecutor Giuseppe Borrelli, began in January 2024 by the Carabinieri of the Reggio Calabria Investigative Unit and continued with the participation of the financial police of the Special Currency Police Unit, who were already investigating with another Public Prosecutor's Office, stemmed from a report from the Customs and Monopolies Agency regarding an anomalous flow of bets on a Primavera football match.

Sums of money that could reach up to 10,000 euros per match

The resulting investigative activity—as currently confirmed by the preliminary investigations judge's findings—has uncovered serious evidence of a criminal conspiracy for sports fraud, promoted and directed by a referee from the Reggio Calabria section of the Primavera, Primavera 2, and Serie C categories. He oversaw the refereeing of several football matches in an effort to influence the final outcome and make it converge toward the outcomes of targeted bets placed by members of the association. Even after his suspension by the sports justice bodies that had discovered the initial irregularities, the Reggio Calabria referee identified other fellow referees, designated for individual sporting matches, and then approached and bribed them, through the payment or promise of sums of money, sometimes as high as €10,000 per match, in order for them to oversee the match in a manner that would align the outcome with the bets placed by members of the association.

The referee made the matches end with an exact number of goals for the prediction to come true.

According to the reconstruction supported by the investigating judge, the criminal network involved additional suspects as members of the syndicate. They provided moral and material support to the referee's activities, including establishing contact with the designated referees for the matches being bet on, and investing their own money in the group's bets for the purpose of generating a shared profit. The modus operandi was simple but effective: the referee ensured that matches ended with a sufficient number of goals to guarantee the "over" prediction (i.e., exceeding a certain total number of goals for each match). The referee achieved this by awarding a significant number of penalties, often nonexistent. Other times, he favored one of the two teams, usually the one with the higher odds, by sending off opposing players without any real reason.

Checks on banks and gaming accounts used by the association

These decisions had a significant impact on the outcome of the matches, which was far from the proper and fair conduct of sporting competitions. The other members of the organization bet large sums of money on that very rigged and "rigged" outcome, generating significant profits for themselves. The organization was financed, primarily for the purpose of bribing other match officials, by two Tuscan entrepreneurs (a father and son), owners of a betting agency in Sesto Fiorentino (Florence), who were also arrested. Specifically, the organization also used its betting collection business located in Tuscany to channel large-scale bets on matches affected by the corruption. Investigations into the organization's banking and gaming accounts revealed the suspects' use of foreign betting providers not authorized to operate within the European Union, clearly intended to avoid raising suspicions about significant betting flows. The measures taken were adopted during the preliminary investigation phase and are subject to appeal. Therefore, until a final verdict is reached, the suspects must be considered innocent.

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