Chiara Ferragni allegedly ‘deceived her followers’. This is the thesis of the Milan Prosecutor’s Office in the trial that saw the influencer accused of aggravated fraud in connection with the commercial operations of “Pandoro Balocco Pink Christmas” (Christmas 2022) and “Chiara Ferragni’s Easter Eggs – let’s support the Elf Children” (Easter 2021 and 2022). A “widespread” fraud in which Ferragni had a “significant role” and for this reason does not deserve leniency.
Request for punishment
Before announcing the request for a sentence of one year and eight months, deputy prosecutor Eugenio Fusco and prosecutor Cristian Barilli reconstructed the agreement between the companies and specifically included emails highlighting how the last word was left to the 38-year-old woman and her former right-hand man Fabio Maria Damato (also asked for one year and eight months), while on the part of the co-defendant Francesco Cannillo (requested one year), president of the board of directors of Cerealitalia, there was a “more prudent” attitude and therefore mitigating factors should generally be balanced with aggravating circumstances.
The courtroom recalled numerous emails sent by consumers to find out the percentage of charity compared to purchases, requests that received irrelevant responses until Pandoro’s gates exploded. According to the prosecutor’s office, the businessman deceived consumers and obtained, through two commercial campaigns, unfair profits of around 2.2 million euros, as well as unquantifiable profits from the return of the image. In particular, the “Balocco” operation allegedly misled an unspecified number of buyers who believed that with their purchase of Pink (at a price of 9.37 euros instead of 3.68) they would finance a fundraiser for the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin. However, the agreement turned out to be different: Ferragni’s company collected more than one million euros to advertise via Instagram a charity initiative for which Balocco’s company had allocated 50 thousand euros to the hospital, regardless of sales.
“Communication error”
The alleged “communication error” also occurred in the second disputed case. In the relationship of trust created between the influencer and the follower – which was betrayed by Chiara Ferragni, according to the prosecutor’s office – was included the aggravating circumstance of interference defense in connection with fraud. Those who bought, often in large-scale retail stores, trusted digital entrepreneurs and what happened was “widespread contract fraud” in which buyers were “scattered and crushed” across the country. A concept also expressed by the only recognized civil party, namely the association “Casa del consumer”. The sentence is expected to be handed down in January 2026.
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