News from Italy

[aleksandrored]

Cosa Nostra, drug trafficking and the "branch" in Calabria: Dia blitz, 34 arrests

A blitz by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Department has dealt a major blow to Cosa Nostra, above all to the mafia business in Sicily and in particular between the provinces of Agrigento, Palermo, Trapani, Catania, Ragusa.

But the investigators also arrived in Calabria, in Vibo Valentia (where to end in handcuffs were two people of Briatico, Gregorio Niglia, 36 years, and Francesco Romano, 33) extending up to Emilia Romagna, in Parma, for the execution - as a whole - of 34 arrest orders.

The DDA of Palermo challenges 32 of the suspects the mafia association, participation and competition in criminal association aimed at trafficking and drug dealing, aggravated by the mafia method; illegal possession of weapons, kidnapping for aggravated extortion and damage by fire.

The operation, called "Kerkent" and coordinated by the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office, also saw the employment of the Carabinieri of the Provincial Command of Agrigento who, under the same provision, carried out two other precautionary custody orders with the accusations of competition in kidnapping and sexual violence, even these aggravated by the mafia method.

The thesis of the investigators is that a criminal association was thus dispelled that would have its base in Agrigento and ramification, in particular, in Palermo and also in Calabria, and that specialized in drug trafficking through a structured criminal group armed.

[scagghiuni]

Ex-councillors among 25 nabbed in Mafia op
Accusations include mafia association, vote buying


(ANSA) - Palermo, March 5 - Two former councillors were among 25 people arrested by Carabinieri police in an anti-Mafia operation in the Sicilian province of Trapani on Tuesday, sources said. The politicians were named as Paolo Ruggirello, a former councillor in the Sicilian regional assembly for the centre-left Democratic Party, and Ivana Inferrera, a former member of the city of Trapani's executive.
Ruggirello is accused of mafia association while Inferrera is under investigation for mafia-linked vote buying, according to the sources.
During the investigation, the Carabinieri uncovered an alleged Cosa Nostra 'cell' on the island of Favignana and they seized asserts worth around 10 million euros.

[scagghiuni]

Ex-councillors among 25 nabbed in Mafia op
Accusations include mafia association, vote buying


(ANSA) - Palermo, March 5 - Two former councillors were among 25 people arrested by Carabinieri police in an anti-Mafia operation in the Sicilian province of Trapani on Tuesday, sources said. The politicians were named as Paolo Ruggirello, a former councillor in the Sicilian regional assembly for the centre-left Democratic Party, and Ivana Inferrera, a former member of the city of Trapani's executive.
Ruggirello is accused of mafia association while Inferrera is under investigation for mafia-linked vote buying, according to the sources.
During the investigation, the Carabinieri uncovered an alleged Cosa Nostra 'cell' on the island of Favignana and they seized asserts worth around 10 million euros.

[aleksandrored]

"Kerkent", the drug business of Cosa Nostra and Stidda in Agrigento



Relationships with different men of honor or contiguous to Cosa Nostra of different countries of the province. This is the split that emerges from the investigators' cards and that sees as central figure Antonio Massimino, the 52-year-old alleged boss of Villaseta arrested, along with 33 other people, in the operation last Monday resulting from the investigation called "Kerkent".

"It also emerged that the criminal group headed by the same Massimino - reads the information signed by Dia - has entertained illicit relations, mostly concerning the sale of drugs, with other subjects of neighboring centers such as: Giuseppe Blando di Favara; Gaetano, Carmelo and Gioacchino Pace, from Palma di Montechiaro (Rosario's brothers); Salvatore Sicilia of Favara, brother of the best known prejudice for Mafia Ignazio and Giuseppe Sicilia, cousins ​​of Massimino; Valentino Messina from Porto Empedocle, brother of the former superlatitant Gerlandino, Francesco Luparello from Realmonte, and Angelo Cardella from Porto Empedocle, both considered to belong to the mafia family of Porto Empedocle. The aforementioned subjects are considered intrusive or contiguous to the mafia gangs of the province of Agrigento, and their appearance in the investigation has made it understood and finished to confirm that the illicit business conducted by Cosa Nostra and Stidda, are now directed towards the management of the lucrative drug market ".

Meanwhile, another important element also emerges. The ordinances that would have been requested by the magistrates of the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate of Palermo would have been 70, of these, however, as is known, only 34 have been accepted.

[aleksandrored]

Cosa Nostra, carabinieri blitz in Palermo with 32 arrests

The police of the Provincial Command of Palermo arrested 32 people accused in various ways of mafia-type criminal association, external competition in mafia association, extortion aggravated by the mafia method, aggravated aiding, fraudulent transfer of values, unfair competition aggravated by Mafia purposes drug dealing and illegal possession of weapons. The investigation is coordinated by the Dda of the Sicilian capital.

The investigation is a continuation of an investigative activity that in recent months has led to "hit" the Mafia district of Porta Nuova and then to discover the reconstitution of the Dome of Cosa Nostra, which returned to meet after twenty years, on May 28 last, in Altarello di Baida, in the Palermo area. Drugs are still the main business of Cosa Nostra in Palermo, but active in many other sectors. Among others, the supply of coffee to bars and tour buses.

[aleksandrored]

The boss Raffaele Cutolo risks dying in prison

His health conditions were severe and the Radicals demanded that he be treated outside the penitentiary institute "

The boss of the Nco, Raffaele Cutolo would be in serious health conditions and without adequate care outside the prison could die. This is what a group of parliamentarians of the Radicals denounces and have sounded the alarm about the conditions of Ottaviano's boss. The Radicals are fighting to get them the necessary care or at least a dignified death away from prison. These are the words of the group regarding the story of the historic Ras of the Camorra of the 1980s.

The words of the Radicals
"Cutolo must have a dignified end outside prison. As for everyone. We even took care of Provenzano. We take care of everyone because the end of a person, especially in those conditions, certainly does not require revenge. They are people who have become decades of prison and it is clear that, especially if they have serious debilitating diseases, they cannot be cured and in that way detention is a type of torture, which we forbid even if we do so as we do for who is at 41bis.

When Cutolo sold linen in Valtenesi

1977, when Raffaele Cutolo, founder of the New organized Camorra, after he escaped from the Poggioreale prison landed on Lake Garda. The boss, who is now in the maximum security prison of Parma, had found a house in a small house in Soiano and worked as a linen representative. A unique cover for a significant personality in the field of organized crime. The arrival in Soiano, however, was not accidental. There, in fact, lived one of the associates of Raffaele Cutolo, Oreste Pagano. And in that house a historic summit was held: with Pagano there were also Oronzio Palma, Luigi Buono, Michele Coppola, Antonio Lepre and Arturo Tiritelli, who swore allegiance to the Nco's designs. Oreste Pagano was arrested in Mexico in 1998, and in 2001 he began to collaborate with justice. In all the deals concluded on Lake Garda and in the neighboring areas, real and proper settlements of accounts between various mafia families stand out. How can we forget the execution of Adolfo Pedana of Villa Literno, found incapritato, in November 1995, in his abandoned car in the countryside of Lonato and set on fire by people left without identity. Cutolo has been in serious health conditions for some months and - according to a group of Radicals, who launched the alarm just a few days ago -, without adequate treatment outside the prison, could die. The family, among other things, lives in conditions of extreme need. "Cutolo - the radicals affirm - must have a dignified end outside prison, because the end of a person, especially in those conditions, certainly does not require revenge".

[Strax]

March 14 - Double murder in ZEN quarter in Palermo. The victims are a young 18-year-old boxer, Giacomo Lupo, and his father Antonino 53.

March 18 - Francesco Manzella, 34, with criminal records, was shot dead in Palermo

Credits to Carmelo.

[Strax]

More than thirty years after the discovery in Trapani of a secret lodge, Isis 2, where Mafia members and white-collar workers were found, now the discovery of another secret Masonic super lodge, in Castelvetrano, in the heart of mafia power in the hands of fugitive boss Matteo Messina Denaro.
Police arrested 27 freemasons on charges of crimes of corruption, bribery, forgery, embezzlement, fraud, trafficking of illicit influences, disclosure of official secrecy, abetting, abuse of office.
Among the arrested the former president of the regional parliament, Francesco Cascio, the former mayor Felice Errante, his deputy Vincenzo Chiofalo, and Luciano Perricone, one of the former mayoral candidates for Castelvetrano, the former regional deputy Giovanni Lo Sciuto, the latter, who was also a member of the regional anti-mafia commission, would be the venerable master of the lodge, the current regional councilor for Education and former rector of the University of Palermo, Roberto Lagalla and 3 policemen, one of them member of the DIA

[Strax]

Credits to Carmelo.

[CabriniGreen]

An article on the " Super Cupola".....
http://www.antimafiaduemila.com/home/pr ... morra.html

[Strax]

An article on the " Super Cupola".....
http://www.antimafiaduemila.com/home/pr ... morra.html

Known thing,they are almost never caught,even if they are, they don't go to prison.

[aleksandrored]

They offered Matteo Messina Denaro's brother-in-law a million for a million euros. And the release. It is the figure that was offered to Matteo Messina Denaro's brother-in-law, Guttadauro, for information on the fugitive. He tells it "The doubt."

Filippo Guttadauro, currently not detained, but interned since January 2016 - date of the end of the sentence for a mafia-type association - at the "work house" in Tolmezzo.

The prison, however, as reported several times by Il Dubbio, has no work activity and for the eight internees, in the absence of the assessment tool, the extension is almost automatic. This is why I have been on hunger strike for weeks. The complaint of Guttadauro, assisted by the lawyer and militant of the Italian Radicals Michele Capano, is recorded by the Udine surveillance office at the hearing held on March 20 for the review of the security measure of internment in Tolmezzo. In front of the surveillance magistrate and the prosecutor, Guttadauro asked for the withdrawal of the internment and the possibility of being able to work at the farm headed to the wife of his brother Carlo, acquitted in second degree by the protest against the mafia association. The PM has asked for an extension of the security measure, accepted by the surveillance magistrate.

During the hearing Filippo Guttadauro, a specific question is answered verbatim words, reported in the minutes of March 20, at Tolmezzo's "home work": "There have been several investigative interrogations, in 2014 I was asked to collaborate with justice, immediately after my son's arrest, a second request was made in January-February 2017 and in October of the same year by two people who qualified as officers of the Carabinieri dei Ros ».

Then Guttadauro continues: "In the first few months of last year, a deputy commissioner and an agent from the Palermo police station presented themselves, who offered me immediate release and a million euros, and then the colonel returned. came from the Eagle, an agent of the Dia of Palermo and a person I could not indicate, who offered me "a mountain of money". They basically asked for information to track down my brother-in-law. "

His brother-in-law is Matteo Messina Denaro, 56, the most wanted fugitive in Italy.

Filippo Guattadauro - 12 years in prison and now interned for three years in Tolmezzo -, according to the Ministry of Justice who extended his 41 bis internship, is still considered dangerous because he could continue to maintain ties and relations with mafia members who currently located outside the penitentiary circuit. The Interior Ministry also agreed, which considers Guttadauro still permanently and organically inserted into the mafia structure with an apical role within the "family" of Castelvetrano, led by his brother-in-law, the fugitive boss Matteo Messina Denaro.

For the defense, on the other hand, there is no element that supports its alleged ability to maintain links with the criminal association, such as to justify the extension of the 41a, especially when in Tolmezzo, the same team considered that Guttadauro, in the continuation of the processing, may «benefit from licenses aimed at a gradual reintegration in the family context». The paradox is that as an internee he would have the right, in fact, to benefit from the licenses, but being in the cells of 41 bis, he cannot use them.

[Strax]

The investigation of the super-fugitive Matteo Messina Denaro is at a turning point. The most dramatic. This morning police arrested two investigators accused of having passed confidential information on some Trapani mafia member of the godfather's entourage. They are the Colonel Marco Zappalà, an officer of the Carabinieri serving in the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate of Caltanissetta, and Giuseppe Barcellona, ​​a Carabinieri member working for the Compagnia di Castelvetrano.
The former mayor of Castelvetrano, Antonio Vaccarino, who was already convicted of drug trafficking and then became a confidant of the secret services, was also arrested.

Credits to Carmelo for original post.

[Dwalin2014]

The former mayor of Castelvetrano, Antonio Vaccarino, who was already convicted of drug trafficking and then became a confidant of the secret services, was also arrested.

I remember reading he was acquitted of mafia involvement but convicted for drug trafficking, which is his only conviction that was upheld. Imo juridically it doesn't make sense: how was Vaccarino supposed to have distributed drugs in mafia territory without being in the mafia (according to the judges that sentenced him)?
If I remember correctly, the informant Vincenzo Calcara said Vaccarino was consigliere for the Castelvetrano family when Francesco Messina Denaro was boss, and actually presided over some making ceremonies, according to Marco Bettini's book "Pentito. Una storia di mafia" (although in the book Antonino Vaccarino's name was changed to Antonio Capogreco).

[scagghiuni]

They offered Matteo Messina Denaro's brother-in-law a million for a million euros. And the release. It is the figure that was offered to Matteo Messina Denaro's brother-in-law, Guttadauro, for information on the fugitive. He tells it "The doubt."

Filippo Guttadauro, currently not detained, but interned since January 2016 - date of the end of the sentence for a mafia-type association - at the "work house" in Tolmezzo.

these guttadauro's are very serious and rich people, they belong to multiple families... giuseppe 'the doctor' guttadauro is the boss of brancaccio family , carlo guttadauro is a capodecina of bagheria family and filippo guttadauro a member of castelvetrano family
involved in tons of sectors, they dominate the fish markets in half italy, constructions, waste disposal, on-line gambling, renewable energy