by aleksandrored » Mon May 28, 2018 7:00 am
CabriniGreen wrote: ↑Mon May 28, 2018 5:53 am
I remember the Queens thing, supposedly financed by Federico?
Ndrangheta and Philly though, haven't heard about that connection. Did that come out of the recent indictment?
Also, is it just police pressure that has weakened the Calabrians drug ties, or something else?
I feel like when considering the Italian syndicates, it's important to pay attention to the drug trafficking, and the routes as far as whose in control. It helps to map the power.
Here is the latest article on this:
May 13 2018 - In Sicily tons of drugs from all over the world: pusher always stronger
Organizations no longer just local that make tons of drugs from all over the world arrive in Sicily, with sometimes unprecedented routes. There is not only the "old" South America king of cocaine, but also Germany and Spain, Morocco and Lebanon, Greece, the Mediterranean.
With another novelty, not just: the 'ndrangheta is no longer the undisputed queen, or at least not as long ago. An alarm that sounds clear to those who investigate and fight against a flow that seems endless: for organized crime the gains of drugs are increasing more and more, so as to represent one of the largest, if not the largest, source of income.
And it's not hard to believe it. On closer inspection, omitting for a moment the great operations of law enforcement, where for the quantity sequestered we speak of tons or even tons, in the daily life in Sicily, more and more often, the drug found in hand also to small drug dealers gauge is in the order of kilograms. Grams are rarely found.
One of the reasons? Whoever supplies the drug, in a certain turn, in all likelihood has no time to waste and wants substantial gains immediately, and even those who sell it accept to risk more in exchange for much more money if things were to go for the best .
To explain it is Colonel Francesco Mazzotta, commander of the economic-financial police unit of Palermo: "Without a doubt, Cosa Nostra pays particular attention to the drug, given the difficulty in making profits from other illicit sources. There is always a minor store, alarming and to fight, but to disarticulate the production we must rebuild the organizational pyramid behind all this. The investigations do not follow only the ball of hashish but aim at those who arrive with large quantities by air, by sea, international flights. The dealers, both Italian and foreign, are clearly the last terminals of an organization much larger than themselves. The astonishing is returning to the limelight for its high profitability - continues Mazzotta - with crops and a care for details that do everything to maximize profit. Obviously everything depends on the cut, but it is clear that it is more and more frequent to find even the smallest dealers with increasingly high loads. The main objective of our investigative initiatives is to deprive, as much as possible, the criminal organizations of one of their main illicit sources of livelihood ". In short, the daily struggle for the smallest "minute" store, the investigative attention of the finance guard is mainly aimed at reconstructing the most serious phenomena of international drug trafficking and illicit financial flows generated by them.
To do this, international law enforcement cooperations are increasingly frequent, collaborating in this sense: "By now it has become fundamental. We investigate large-scale criminal organizations, rebuilding the network of pusher starting from the top - says Mazzotta -. We use our knowledge, technology and environmental tapping. For example, with the operation Libeccio international, which lasted two years, we have seized something like 74 tons of drugs, creating a real international network together with the French, Spanish, Greeks, Germans, Portuguese, Moroccans, more generally countries that overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, which constitutes, as easily understood, a motorway. And to be interested is not only Palermo, but all of Sicily ".
The huge profits of the drug are then reinvested in other perfectly legal activities, such as that of catering, as discovered by another transnational operation, the "Meltemi", with 20 arrests for drug trafficking from Sicily to Germany: "It is also about depriving them of the economic resources they derive from drugs - says Mazzotta - In this case, we noticed that with the drug money they opened and ran catering activities".
But something is happening even within large criminal organizations. For example, until recently, in Italy, almost everything was in the hands of the 'ndrangheta: the flow was firmly in his hands. Now something has changed.
"In the latest investigations - says Mazzotta - we have had the opportunity to see how the Sicilian criminals have been able to deal directly with foreign suppliers, even South Americans, of amazing without necessarily passing through the mediation of the Calabrians".
[quote=CabriniGreen post_id=78572 time=1527512013 user_id=5378]
I remember the Queens thing, supposedly financed by Federico?
Ndrangheta and Philly though, haven't heard about that connection. Did that come out of the recent indictment?
Also, is it just police pressure that has weakened the Calabrians drug ties, or something else?
I feel like when considering the Italian syndicates, it's important to pay attention to the drug trafficking, and the routes as far as whose in control. It helps to map the power.
[/quote]
Here is the latest article on this:
[b]May 13 2018 - In Sicily tons of drugs from all over the world: pusher always stronger[/b]
Organizations no longer just local that make tons of drugs from all over the world arrive in Sicily, with sometimes unprecedented routes. There is not only the "old" South America king of cocaine, but also Germany and Spain, Morocco and Lebanon, Greece, the Mediterranean.
With another novelty, not just: the 'ndrangheta is no longer the undisputed queen, or at least not as long ago. An alarm that sounds clear to those who investigate and fight against a flow that seems endless: for organized crime the gains of drugs are increasing more and more, so as to represent one of the largest, if not the largest, source of income.
And it's not hard to believe it. On closer inspection, omitting for a moment the great operations of law enforcement, where for the quantity sequestered we speak of tons or even tons, in the daily life in Sicily, more and more often, the drug found in hand also to small drug dealers gauge is in the order of kilograms. Grams are rarely found.
One of the reasons? Whoever supplies the drug, in a certain turn, in all likelihood has no time to waste and wants substantial gains immediately, and even those who sell it accept to risk more in exchange for much more money if things were to go for the best .
To explain it is Colonel Francesco Mazzotta, commander of the economic-financial police unit of Palermo: "Without a doubt, Cosa Nostra pays particular attention to the drug, given the difficulty in making profits from other illicit sources. There is always a minor store, alarming and to fight, but to disarticulate the production we must rebuild the organizational pyramid behind all this. The investigations do not follow only the ball of hashish but aim at those who arrive with large quantities by air, by sea, international flights. The dealers, both Italian and foreign, are clearly the last terminals of an organization much larger than themselves. The astonishing is returning to the limelight for its high profitability - continues Mazzotta - with crops and a care for details that do everything to maximize profit. Obviously everything depends on the cut, but it is clear that it is more and more frequent to find even the smallest dealers with increasingly high loads. The main objective of our investigative initiatives is to deprive, as much as possible, the criminal organizations of one of their main illicit sources of livelihood ". In short, the daily struggle for the smallest "minute" store, the investigative attention of the finance guard is mainly aimed at reconstructing the most serious phenomena of international drug trafficking and illicit financial flows generated by them.
To do this, international law enforcement cooperations are increasingly frequent, collaborating in this sense: "By now it has become fundamental. We investigate large-scale criminal organizations, rebuilding the network of pusher starting from the top - says Mazzotta -. We use our knowledge, technology and environmental tapping. For example, with the operation Libeccio international, which lasted two years, we have seized something like 74 tons of drugs, creating a real international network together with the French, Spanish, Greeks, Germans, Portuguese, Moroccans, more generally countries that overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, which constitutes, as easily understood, a motorway. And to be interested is not only Palermo, but all of Sicily ".
The huge profits of the drug are then reinvested in other perfectly legal activities, such as that of catering, as discovered by another transnational operation, the "Meltemi", with 20 arrests for drug trafficking from Sicily to Germany: "It is also about depriving them of the economic resources they derive from drugs - says Mazzotta - In this case, we noticed that with the drug money they opened and ran catering activities".
But something is happening even within large criminal organizations. For example, until recently, in Italy, almost everything was in the hands of the 'ndrangheta: the flow was firmly in his hands. Now something has changed.
"In the latest investigations - says Mazzotta - we have had the opportunity to see how the Sicilian criminals have been able to deal directly with foreign suppliers, even South Americans, of amazing without necessarily passing through the mediation of the Calabrians".