Chiara Ferragni indicted for ‘Pandoro Gate’

ROME – Chiara Ferragni, the digital entrepreneur and former fashion favourite of the likes of Dior’s Maria Grazia-Chiuri, has been indicted on charges of alleged aggravated fraud, judicial sources said Thursday.
The indictment comes following the so-called ‘Pandoro Gate’ in which Ferragni sold a limited-edition Chiara Ferragni branded pink pandoro in collaboration with the food company Balocco in 2022, as well as the ‘Preziosi Dolci’ Easter eggs of 2021 and 2022, according to the sources quoted by Fatto Quotidiano newspaper.
The request of the prosecutor also concerns Fabio Damato, the former right-hand man of Ferragni, Alessandra Balocco, president of Balocco and Francesco Cannillo, entrepreneur.
Ferragni’s legal defence team, Giuseppe Iannaccone and Marcello bana have stated that ‘she has not committed any crime’ and that “every controversial aspect has already been addressed with A.G.C.O.M.,” the government authority for advertising control.
The court proceedings are due to begin on Sept. 23 with the pre-hearing.
In the same statement Ferragni said that “I sincerely believed that it was not necessary to have a trial to demonstrate that I have never scammed anyone.”
"Unfortunately, I will have to live with this accusation again, which I consider deeply unjust, but I am ready to fight with even greater determination to prove my absolute innocence.”
One month ago, the influencer closed an agreement with C.O.D.A.C.O.N.S., to pay 200 thousand euros to the organisation, which helps victims of domestic violence, however, the prosecutor’s office still decided to go ahead with indictment.
What is ‘Pandoro Gate’?
In Christmas 2022 repackaged Balocco Pandoros were being sold at two and a half times the original price and were advertised as ‘Chiara Ferragni e Balocco together for Queen Margherita Hospital in Turin’, a children’s hospital.
In the opinion of the authorities this had led consumers to believe that a portion of the sales of these would be donated to the hospital to support sarcoma research and buy new machinery for the Ewing Sarcoma ward, according to Fortune Italy.
It had, however, emerged that Balocco had already made a donation of 50 thousand euros to the children’s hospital in May 2022, well before the seasonal Christmas Pandoros in which were being sold in stores, according to Fatto Quotidiano.
Although the hospital did receive one million euros more than they would have done without the initiative, the complaint from the authorities is that consumers were misled.
In her now infamous apology video, Ferragni offered to donate 1 million euros herself to the Queen Margherita Hospital and blamed everything on a misunderstanding, not placing the blame on anyone in particular in Balocco or her management team.
The profits
According to the prosecutor the Ferragni companies collected over 1 million euros in advertising revenue on Instagram.
Balocco made sales of at least 362,577 euros from the sales of the Balocco Pink Christmas pandoro.
This comes at an even worse time for the under-fire influencer, who is currently subject to a cheating scandal involving her estranged husband, the Italian rapper Fedez, who was accused in a 43-minute-long YouTube video ‘Falsissimo’ by popular Italian TV personality Fabrizio Corona, of cheating on Ferragni for the duration of their six year marriage, including talking to his mistress 5 minutes before their wedding ceremony with their then 5 month old baby.
Ferragni had previously done a lot of successful charity work before, with her and Fedez managing to raised three million euros in 24 hours during the 2020 pandemic to support the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.
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