A Parmalat employee who had been questioned in the company's fraud scandal died in an apparent suicide, officials said, as investigators searched another bank office and again questioned the company's jailed founder.
Alessandro Bassi had worked closely with two jailed former company financial managers, Italian news reports said. Bassi had been questioned by investigators but wasn't considered a suspect, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, prosecutors kept up their marathon questioning of suspects, interrogating Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi in a Milan hospital Friday after he was transferred there from prison for medical tests.
PHOTO: EPA
Investigators have been concentrating on two fronts: Parmalat records and questioning of current or past company employees as well as scrutinizing documentation of banks which placed Parmalat bonds or gave the multinational food conglomerate credit.
Deutsche Bank offices were searched Friday and documents were being studied because of a US$445 million bond issue that the bank placed for Parmalat in late September.
A spokeswoman for the bank in Frankfurt, Germany, said of the search: "We will continue to fully cooperate with the authorities."
Milan Prosecutor Francesco Greco said the banks were not the targets: "No banks or financial institutions are under investigation. We are only trying to acquire the elements necessary to reconstruct some of the operations that Parmalat managers conducted."
Tanzi, who has a history of heart problems, was taken to a hospital Thursday evening after he felt tingling in an arm, said lawyer Fabio Belloni.
Bassi had been a close aide to two of the company's top financial figures, Fausto Tonna and Luciano Del Soldato, Italian state television said. He plunged to his death from a bridge over a river in the countryside near Parma, the area where Parmalat has its headquarters.
"We don't know whether the suicide was connected to the Parmalat scandal," Parma prosecutor Pietro Errede told reporters near the river bank. "We're considering the death a suicide."
Authorities were awaiting autopsy results before making an official ruling on the death.
Another Parma prosecutor, Vincenzo Picciotti, said that when Bassi was questioned Tuesday "no element of responsibility emerged" for him.
"Bassi was in the condition, however, of being able to furnish useful elements to the investigation," Picciotti told reporters at Parma's courthouse Friday night.
Tanzi, 65, was arrested on Dec. 27. Earlier this month, he was denied house arrest on grounds that he might flee the country or tamper with evidence.
Tanzi is one of 10 people arrested in the case. He has admitted to a US$10 billion gap in the firm's balance sheet and told interrogators that up to US$640 million was diverted from Parmalat to cover losses by his family's tourism businesses.
The Parmalat scandal unfolded last month after the company acknowledged that Bank of America didn't have nearly US$5 billion of its funds as the dairy company had falsely claimed. Soon after, Parmalat was granted bankruptcy protection.
In Brazil, Carlos Casseb, a lawyer for Parmalat's Brazilian creditors, said Parmalat's dairy unit there needs US$36 million in credit to keep operating.
Parmalat has been struggling to make payments to milk producers and other suppliers in Brazil, where banks cut off the credit lines last month after the scandal broke.
Brazilian police are trying to determine whether Parmalat funds were hidden in that country or illegally moved abroad, while other investigations into the company's books and finances are expected to be launched.
Heavy expansion by Parmalat in South America, coupled with that continent's economic slump in recent years, are widely believed to have figured in Parmalat's shaky finances.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last