MILAN - Alberto Bianchi, owner of the company New Publigest and friend of Forza Italia leader Silvio Berlusconi, has been sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for an alleged tax fraud in connection with false invoices.

 According to the indictment from the Court of Milan, the non-existent transactions allowed Bianchi to collect money from Publitalia, the Mediaset group advertising agency, “without carrying out any work, while on paper he should have procured customers,” the Public Prosecutor's Office reported.

 In the indictment, Public Prosecutor Mauro Clerici explained that Bianchi, “from the end of the 1990s has received a total of 30 million euros from Publitalia.” In the investigation, however, some 8 million were contested and the sentence certified the prescription of various charges.

 Bianchi was “bound by a friendship with Berlusconi since 1956, when they attended a university course, has maintained relations with Publitalia since the 1980s,” and “since the late 1990s, received a total of 30 million euros from Publitalia, in particular 27 million in 14 years until 2013,” explained the prosecutor.

 According to the accusation, it was established that the only reason why the money came out of Publitalia's coffers and arrived at Bianchi through false invoices was due to his friendship with Berlusconi.

if