UPDATED/Wife and brother of Rome official arrested in anti-Mafia investigation live in Malta

UPDATE/RAI 1’s news bulletin tonight reported that Raffaele Marra keeps a boat in Malta which is leased out, and that he has an account with a Maltese bank through which he is suspected of laundering the money he acquired illegally.

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Raffaele Marra, chief of staff to the Movimento Cinque Stelle mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, has been arrested in a major anti-Mafia corruption investigation. Now for the interesting bit: his wife, Chiara Perico, moved to Malta last year, though they are not separated, and lives in what the Italian national news magazine L’Espresso called “an elegant residence in St Julian’s”.

Raffaele Marra’s brother, Catello Marra, has been living in Malta for several years already. He is ‘Lieutenant Grandmaster’ of this fake order of knights of Malta.

He also claims, oddly, to be a counsellor for general affairs at the embassy of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Rome, and he also runs the mysterious International Organization for Diplomatic Relations,which is based in Malta at this address. Its website is worth visiting as it is hilariously bad and obviously not the website of any real organisation.

When L’Espresso published an article calling it a “phantom organisation”, he had his lawyers write to the national news magazine demanding 100,000 euros in damages and claiming that the organisation operates under the auspices of the Ministry for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties.

Catello Marra is on the right, in big epaulettes.