Bung bungle: Italian mayor tells of brazen biscuit-tin bribe

Even by the standards of a country wearily accustomed to bribery and corruption, it was a somewhat flagrant breach of legitimate business practice: two biscuit tins, offered to the local mayor as a Christmas gift, filled with €20,000 in banknotes.

The attempted bribery of Franco Metta, the mayor of a small town in Puglia, southern Italy, occurred this week when a waste management executive strode into Metta’s office claiming to have a meeting scheduled and proffering the package with a Christmas card.

“I opened it and found a tin of biscuits. I thought I would offer it to my colleagues, but inside the tin were banknotes of various denominations,” Metta told Corriere della Sera. “Many banknotes in two different packages. I immediately called the police.”

Metta said he had been supposed to have an appointment with the man’s business partner – a meeting which, presumably, is no longer in his diary. A former criminal lawyer, he called the businessman and berated him with a “series of insults”, ordering him to come back and take back the funds in an attempt to trap him.

The man, who has not been named, allegedly hung up.

The purpose of the bribe, according to reports, was a bid for a landfill in the Cerignola area. Waste management is known in Italy to be rife with mafia-linked corruption, as are public works contracts.

Local police confirmed to the Guardian that Metta filed a legal complaint against the man.

Asked whether he had perhaps made up the incident for attention, Metta denied the claim, saying the €20,000 had been placed “in custody”. While an act of such brazen bribery was almost unbelievable, Metta said, it was “an act of arrogance typical of people who think that money buy everything”.