Overview
- Carabinieri searching the Moda Casa shop found Michelangelo Scamarcia’s decomposing body hidden in a storage area, and the owner, Wei Lin, confessed to suffocating him with a plastic bag during a fight.
- Investigators say the clash followed an illicit cash‑for‑benefits swap using Scamarcia’s inclusion card, a state welfare payment card issued through Poste Italiane.
- Records cited by prosecutors describe a €600 card charge in the shop with an agreed €530 cash return after a €70 fee, but Lin allegedly handed back only €500, triggering the dispute.
- The inquiry, coordinated by Bari prosecutor Claudio Pinto, draws on CCTV and financial traces, including two failed post‑office withdrawal attempts tied to the victim’s card in late April.
- Lin is in temporary detention on suspicion of homicide, concealment of a corpse, and improper use of the card, while forensics work to fix the time of death and an autopsy is pending; authorities say the case spotlights illegal cash conversions that exploit welfare cards.