Owner of D. Lazzaroni & Co. arrested

Fedele Ragosta, the owner of D. Lazzaroni  & Co., the historic firm that makes the famous “Amaretti di Saronno” biscuits, and which, until a few years ago, had its head office Saronno, has been arrested. The operation Bad Iron, carried out by the tax police in Naples, succeeded in arresting about sixty people for a variety of crimes, including external involvement in the Camorra crime organisation, money laundering and corruption.

Among these people, there are also many representatives of the Ragosta Group, including Fedele Ragosta, his wife Anna Maria and several people who collaborate with the holding company. The group not only owns the biscuit company, but also operates in a variety of fields, including the iron and steel industry and real estate, with 4 hotels.

D. Lazzaroni & Co. no longer has any premises in Saronno, and should not be mistaken for Paolo Lazzaroni & Sons, the Saronno-based company that also produces the famous biscuits, especially to make the well-known liqueur. There has always been bad blood between the two companies; for many years, there has been a legal battle for the official title of producers of “Amaretti”.

D. Lazzaroni & Co. went into financial difficulty already in the ’90s, when it still had premises in Saronno. The owner decided to move production to Isola del Gran Sasso, maintaining only a logistic base in town. But in the early years of 2000, the closure of this base became likely. Even Varese Province intervened in the situation, not only to save the employees involved (about a hundred), but also to try to keep the historic brand in the town. Unfortunately, the company closed, and after several changes of ownership, it was taken over by the Ragosta Group in 2008. According to data, in the last few years, the company has even grown considerably, and begun to produce a healthy profit for the Group.

Now the inquiry in Naples has led to the arrest of the top managers of the Group. According to the inquiry, which was reported in the newspapers of Naples, the Ragosta family used money from the Fabbrocino clan, which operates in the area of Vesuvius. It was the group’s most important business, iron and steel, that gave the operation its name. But the inquiry has only just begun, and we expect new developments after the recent blitz.