Milan, November 25 (Adnkronos) – A “widespread” fraud in which Chiara Ferragni had a “significant role” and for this reason it is not worth mitigating the circumstances. 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 Easter Eggs – let’s support the Elf Children’ (Easter 2021 and 2022).
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 trial recalled various emails sent by consumers to find out the percentage of charity compared to purchases, a request that received irrelevant responses until the Pandoro gate exploded calculated from the profit on 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, not 3.68) they would finance a fundraiser for the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin, but the agreement turned out to be different: Ferragni’s company raised more than a million euros to advertise via Instagram a charity initiative that had been made. allocated by the Balocco company thousands of euros to the hospital, despite the alleged “communication error” that 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, the ‘Casa del Consumer’ association. The decision is expected to be issued in January 2026.
