Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi, who was arrested months ago for his alleged role in the dairy giant’s near-collapse, was taken to a hospital in Parma today.

Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi, who is under arrest for his alleged role in the food giant’s near-collapse, has been rushed to hospital with heart problems.

PARMALAT’S debt reached €14.3 billion at the end of September, almost eight times the amount reported by the dairy company’s previous management before it went bankrupt.

A Parmalat employee who had been questioned in the Italian company’s fraud scandal died in an apparent suicide after he jumped off a bridge into a river, officials said.

The National Pension Reserve fund has confirmed it has suffered a loss of €1.4 million as a result of the financial scandal at Italian food group Parmalat.

PROSECUTORS piled pressure on Parmalat’s former finance chief on Tuesday to reveal how billions of euro vanished from the food group, as US banking giant Citigroup and accounting firms faced legal action in the widening scandal.

PARMALAT Finanziaria’s former chief financial officers Fausto Tonna and Luciano Del Soldato are among six executives arrested by the Italian police today as part of a probe into the collapse of Italy’s largest food company, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Police were carrying out a new round of arrests in the Parmalat dairy company financial scandal in Italy today.

Italian prosecutors looking into the near collapse of food giant Parmalat claim the company’s founder was fully aware of multi-billion euro fraud at his company, and urged a judge to keep the one-time business baron behind bars during investigations.

PARMALAT Finanziaria SpA founder Calisto Tanzi is being probed for allegedly misappropriating about €800 million ($1 billion) from the company, a person familiar with the investigation said.

Italian prosecutors asked a judge today to confirm the arrest of Parmalat’s founder and former Chief Executive Officer after they accused him of market rigging, fraudulent bankruptcy and making false statements to auditors to hide a multi-billion pound hole in the dairy company’s balance sheet.

Prosecutors today questioned Calisto Tanzi, the founder and former chief executive of Parmalat, hours after he was detained by police in connection with alleged fraud surrounding the near-collapse of the dairy company.

FABIO CANNAVARO was marked out for great things when he was 17 years old. He had already been working as a ball-boy and playing in the junior teams of Napoli for five years when he was invited to train with the senior squad.