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When (and how) the gangs of Rocca di Neto found America
CATANZARO It all began in March 2020, when the Central Operations Service received some reports from the FBI in New York. The Americans report a name they are investigating: Teodoro Matozzo, 65, known as Terry, originally from Satriano, described as a «prominent exponent of American organized crime, believed to be closely linked to the well-known “Gambino” and “Colombo” families of “La Cosa Nostra “American”. According to overseas investigators, Matozzo is allegedly dedicated to drug trafficking, the laundering of precious metals and the management of clandestine gambling.
Not only.
The New York investigators underline suspicious activities that a certain Ernesto Toscano, 56, from Rocca di Neto, would have carried out on behalf of Matozzo between America and Italy. The investigations by the FBI in New York lead to a small town in the Crotone area, Rocca di Neto, where Toscano would have sent his fellow citizen Ennio Lerose «to make direct contact with his uncles Pietro Corigliano and Martino Corigliano, so as to convince them to intervene in the implementation of a serious extortion against a Manhattan businessman».
The Coriglianos – it is written in the information of almost 1500 pages ended up on the desks of the prosecutor Nicola Gratteri and the deputies Domenico Guarascio and Paolo Sirleo – would have accepted the proposal and would have immediately done their utmost to entrust some associates, already established in New York, with the extortion . This is the American side of an investigation which led the Catanzaro DDA to arrest 18 people on 19 December. However, subjects not paid attention to by the detention but very attentive to the investigations by American investigators also ended up in the report.
Successful assignment and request for new “services”
According to the investigators, Toscano, given his movements in Italy and the restart for the United States, presumably “entrusted the criminal assignment to his friend Ennio Lerose during the first ten days of August 2019, since, as has been ascertained , on the 12th he left the United States to go to Italy, followed on the 24th by Lerose himself».
The criminal action commissioned by Teodoro Matozzo would have had a successful outcome on December 10, 2019, so much so that «Matozzo would have instructed the Calabrian criminal group to provide him with similar “services”, to be implemented against different subjects present in the State of New York».
The retreat of the Belvedere di Spinello and Rocca di Neto clans in Glen Cove
An interrogation of 12 May 2012 to the collaborator of justice Francesco Oliverio is included in the information prepared by SCO and the Crotone mobile squad, regarding the deadly ambush carried out against Francesco Iona on 9 October 1999. Oliverio specifies that two of the creators of the ambush “they had decided to go to the United States a few days before the action, so as to create an alibi for the murder”.
The investigators note that «The expedient devised by the two associates to provide a possible plausible justification to the investigators is undoubtedly justified in the fact that numerous exponents of the Belvedere di Spinello and Rocca di Neto clans have moved to the United States of America for several years, and precisely to Glen Covein the State of New York, where a real Calabrian colony would seem to exist».
In the same territory lives the Iona family. The collaborator of justice Francesco Tornicchio, from Belvedere Spinello, states “that his clan had long been allied with the “Iona” families of Belvedere di Spinello and Rocca di Neto”. Tornicchio also reports «on the vast “patrimony” that the “Iona” family had managed to accumulate in the United States, especially Antonio Iona with various properties in the commercial sector: “For my direct knowledge, the Iona family has a considerable in the United States (Antonio Iona owns supermarkets and shopping centers in the United States)”.
Follow the money
The American investigators follow the money and discover that between December 2016 and October 2017 there had been “suspicious transactions carried out by Ernesto Toscano at the check exchange agency “Sabrina’s Check Cashing Inc.”, located in Hempsteadal”. Particularly, Toscano had changed 33 checks for a total of 780,424.25 dollars (about 670 thousand euros) into cash. Checks issued by the construction company “Roccaway Construction Corp.” of Massimiliano Guarascio (a subject residing a few meters from Antonio Iona), in favor of the company “M&E Construction”, attributable to Toscano. Non-banking operations that had cost around 15 thousand euros in taxes and services.
In 2019, FBI agents traced similar suspicious operations, still in the same Hempsteadal agency, carried out by Ennio Lerose and Antonio Iona. Lerose had changed multiple checks for a total of 1,168,879 dollars (about one million euros). Iona had changed several securities for an amount of 797,268 dollars (approximately 675,000 euros). Both, for these operations, had spent the equivalent of 22 thousand euros.
According to investigators, there is a “clear contrast” between the $670,000 in revenues for the year 2019 indicated by the Iona firm and the foreign exchange operations carried out by the same.
The report drawn up with the support of the SCO, Squadra Mobile and FBI would reveal “a dense network of contacts which, thanks also to the development of the telephone records of the users used by the Italian suspects, has made it possible to prefigure a graphic scheme of direct relationships and relationships of contiguity between the criminal group headed by Teodoro Matozzo, the members of the “Iona” family present in America and the leaders of the “Corigliano” clan of Rocca di Neto».
And as regards the agency to which Toscano, Lerose and Iona turned, the investigators note: «According to what is reported, although they operate in full legality, the “cheque exchange” agencies are often used by criminal groups to launder the proceeds of its illicit activities, even in the face of fleeting and generic money tracing procedures, released from the control systems of the American Central Bank”.
The “Calabrian manpower” at Matozzo’s disposal
The interceptions charged to Ernesto Toscano would have brought out the “method” of Matozzo which would have usually use of «Calabrian subjects to be employed in unspecified activities, certainly including “illegal” work, in various areas of the State of New York». Toscano, intercepted, explains how the system worked: the Calabrians, after the release of an Esta certificate for tourism (Electronic System for Travel Authorization, electronic system for the authorization to travel without a visa, issued by the Government of the United States) would have remained for a three month stay. And their “services” would have yielded even 5,000 euros a month.
«A channel of “work” – write the investigators – undoubtedly profitable, for which Matozzo did not require his “boys” to have any specific competence, other than that of adopting the utmost discretion towards environments outside the context”.
Ernesto Toscano, unaware of being intercepted, “discussed this flourishing prospect with various friends and acquaintances, to some of whom – specifying that they already possessed the necessary travel documents to return to New York – he envisaged the possibility of following him to America . A reality that he boasted of knowing very well, thanks also to the particular adherence he enjoyed through Matozzo and Ennio Lerose ».
“‘Now that they’re starting to run out a bit… [con il denaro] – says Toscano – I take it again… I go to America when I have to buy something… last time I had to buy a car… without financing and nothing… in three months you make fifteen thousand euros!”, “I got off [ovvero, sono tornato in Calabria] and I bought the car!”».