Locri: Mediaset journalist and team attacked

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Eugenia Fiore had just interviewed a person who said he received universal income supplement while owning a villa.

On February 14^th 2020 the journalist Eugenia Fiore and the team from Fuori dal Coro (Rete 4) were attacked in Locri (Reggio Calabria) while reporting on people who receive universal income supplement without having the right to it. The starting point had been an operation by the financial police that had identified 237 people, believed to belong to the organised crime syndicate ‘ndrangheta, who received that monthly allowance.

While filming, Fiore and his crew were blocked by a car with several people on board. Some of them tried to open the car doors which were locked from the inside. One of them stuck his hands through an open window and grabbed a microphone.

THE JOURNALIST’S STORY – “One of those men – the journalist told Ossigeno – stared at me and asked me: ‘Do you sleep well at the President Hotel?’ I was worried, because that was the hotel where I was staying. And so I phoned the financial police told them what was happening and asked for their intervention. Shortly afterwards, a patrol took us all to their barracks. “

The report was broadcast during the episode of the 18^th February 2020. The presenter Mario Giordano, the editorial staff of Fuori dal Coro and the mayor of Locri expressed solidarity with the team.

THE REPORTAGE – Eugenia Fiore, having learned of the names of a couple of people involved in the investigation by the financial police decided to go and try to meet one of them who manages a finance company in an office in Locri. She pretended to have just arrived in Calabria and looking for work. The reporter filmed the meeting with a hidden camera. Speaking with the man she succeeded in learning that, while conducting his business in the black economy and owning a villa, the woman had managed to obtain universal income supplement, through falsifying the relevant documentation.

After that meeting Eugenia Fiore decided to go to film the villa the man had boasted about. The neighbours, however, had alerted him.

Shortly afterwards, as the crew returned to the city centre, there was the attack.

COA (wt)