(ANSA) - Rome, March 15 - Fraud and waste in the civil service cost the State some 5.3 billion euros in 2016, tax police said in their annual report Thursday. This was more than 1.3 billion euros more than the previous year, the Guardia di Finanza said. Italy's tax police in 2016 uncovered irregular public contracts worth some 3.4 billion euros, more than triple 2015's total of one billion. The police seized assets worth some 781 million euros last year, the fruit of tax evasion or VAT fraud, and assets of 2.6 billion from organised crime.

