News from Italy

[SonnyBlackstein]

Thanks Alex

[aleksandrored]

Mafia, 12 definitive sentences for Cosa Nostra bosses and wingmen

The 12 convictions of the proceedings, resulting from the anti-mafia investigation called "Icaro", which disrupted the new mafia families of the Agrigento, in continuous reorganization, after the various operations, are definitive. The sentence was issued by the Court of Cassation.
Fourteen years of imprisonment were inflicted on Pietro Campo, from Santa Margherita Belice, considered "a top member of the criminal organization in the area". Sentences 14 years and 8 months of imprisonment for the alleged head of the mafia family of Agrigento, Antonino Iacono, known as “Ninu u giardinisi”.

The empedoclinic Francesco Messina, cousin of the father of the boss Gerlandino Messina, was sentenced to 14 years and 8 months. Ten years for Rocco D’Aloisio from Sambuca di Sicilia; and 8 years and 8 months for Tommaso Baroncelli of Santa Margherita Belice; 10 years and 8 months for Mauro Capizzi di Ribera; 10 years for Francesco Capizzi meant “the Milanese” of Porto Empedocle; 10 years for Francesco Tarantino of Porto Empedocle; 10 years and 4 months for Giacomo La Sala di Santa Margherita Belice; 10 years for Santo Interrante of Santa Margherita Belice; 9 years for Diego Grassadonia from Cianciana, and 9 years for Giuseppe lo Pilato, from Agrigento.

[aleksandrored]

Man films mafia in secret and helps to arrest members of the organization

Giuseppe Piraino, a contractor, is one of the 13 alleged victims of mafia extortion who demonstrated to denounce the alleged criminals.

In Sicily, Italy, a businessman secretly filmed an alleged extortionist and resisted his requests for money by showing him a photo of two anti-mafia heroes murdered by the hands of the secret society.

On Monday, the 13 testimonies led to the arrest of 20 alleged members of the Sicilian mafia in Palermo. They were accused of mafia association, conspiracy to drug trafficking, attempted murder and extortion, and were transferred to prison, awaiting trial. The suspects' lawyers did not comment on the charges.

Most of the 20 men arrested are reportedly part of one of the most active Mafia clans in Sicily, the Borgo Vecchio clan in Palermo, including Angelo Monti, a mobster who, according to prosecutors, was the interim head of the crime family.

Monti was released from prison three years ago and, according to Sicilian prosecutors, returned to his main role in the clan. It is not the first time that Piraino has collaborated with the police to have his alleged extortionists arrested after filming them with a hidden camera.

"When they call me for a date, I get anxious, my legs are shaking, the adrenaline goes up," said Piraino. "It's fear". I am not Iron Man. But this fear is nothing compared to the terror with which entrepreneurs who are victims of protection money and do not rebel against the mafia are forced to live every day ".

"For decades, my fellow Sicilian businessmen and traders have suffered because of these [men]. But now that's enough," Piraino told The Guardian.

Police investigated more than 20 extortion episodes, 13 of which were discovered after alleged victims had spoken, agents said.

One of the alleged mafia executors, a "debt collector" of the clan, was arrested thanks to the testimony of Piraino, who filmed him with a hidden camera during an application for protection money, an act known as pizzo . In the video released by Piraino, the alleged extortionist, Salvatore Guarino, can be seen approaching Piraino and proposing to drink an espresso with him at the bar.

Piraino - who had previously been told that someone wanted to meet him and was already apparently ready for the confrontation - refuses and asks Guarino to go straight to the point. "Forget coffee," said the businessman. "What do you have to say to me?" "I want to ask you for a small gift, because we organize a party here every year."

Mafia pizzo requests are rarely explicit, but are often disguised as "code words". Requests for money for protection are often made as a contribution to the organization of religious festivals in the neighborhood or as a contribution to the families of the local men who are in prison.

In the video released by The Guardian, you can hear the dialogue "give me 500 euros for the party", says Guarino. "So that you can do your job calmly and no one bothers you." At that time, Piraino showed him some documents in his hand, containing a list of men killed by the mafia and a photo of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the two Sicilian judges killed in 1992 by the organization, who became a symbol of fight against the mafia.

"These men are called Falcone and Borsellino," said Piraino. "Those who are silent and bow their heads die whenever they do, but those who speak and walk with their heads held high only die once," said the businessman, repeating a quote written under the photograph. "What is the moral of the story?" asked Guarino.

"The moral of the story," replied Piraino, "is that this is the mafia and these people died - because of the mafia. And they must feel humiliated for what they are asking of me". "Keep these photos and this list of men killed by the mafia," added Piraino. "Save them and study them". "But I asked you for money for the party," replied Guarino. "I'm going to show you the party," replied Piraino, before leaving.

"I wanted to humiliate them," Piraino told The Guardian. "Because, for decades, they humiliated thousands of entrepreneurs who were afraid to denounce them, because they feared for their lives".

The video, although filmed on May 28, was released on Monday. Piraino handed it over to the police shortly after filming it. Guarino was arrested on Monday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INZQlvj ... e=emb_logo

[aleksandrored]

Cosa Nostra: blitz in Palermo, 13 remain in prison

13 of the 20 arrested by the Palermo DDA remain behind bars in the investigation which, last week, "hit" the mafia gang of Borgo Vecchio. The investigating judge, who did not validate the provision for any of the suspects, accepted the request for the application of the measure of custody in prison for 13 bosses, followers and extortors of the "family". House arrest were arranged differently for five suspects, while two arrested returned to freedom. The prison, among others, was set up for the mafia boss of the Angelo Monti clan, already convicted of the Mafia, free for three years. The investigation was coordinated by the assistant Salvo De Luca and by the prosecutor Amelia Luise. The investigators, who were able to count on the full cooperation of many victims of the racketeering,they outlined the organization chart of the clan, shed light on 20 extortions, ascertained the interests of the gang in drug trafficking, discovered the interference of the bosses in the organization of local parties and their relations with some groups of the ultras supporters of Palermo.

[aleksandrored]

Massacres of 1992, the Court of Assizes sentences the fugitive boss Matteo Messina Denaro to life imprisonment

After more than 14 hours of chambers, the Court of Assizes of Caltanissetta sentenced the fugitive boss Matteo Messina Denaro to life in prison for the 1992 massacres of Capaci and Via D'Amelio in which the judges Giovanni Falcone lost their lives and Paolo Borsellino and the agents of their escorts. Sought after for over 27 years (since 1993), Messina Denaro is identifiable as the boss of the Trapani mafia and was among the leaders of the Cosa Nostra massacre line imposed by Totò Riina's Cortonese. The trial that has ended is the third that is celebrated in Caltanissetta for the Capaci massacre and the fifth for the Via D'Amelio massacre .


According to the words of the prosecution, supported in court by the deputy prosecutor Gabriele Paci, the boss Matteo Messina Denaro would have determined within the Cosa Nostra "a climate of unanimity without which the Corleonese mafia boss Totò Riina would not have been able to carry out his plans massacres, if not at the risk of a mafia war ». "It is not sustainable - explained the magistrate during the indictment - that Totò Riina would have taken that road anyway without having the consent of Cosa Nostra , because if there had been the dissent of the leaders of one of the provinces there would have been a war". Therefore, Messina Denaro supported the line of the Corleonese godfather for the judges.

[Dr031718]

Have there been any updates on the Inzerillo/Gambino arrests from last year?

[aleksandrored]

The bosses who reorganized and voted in a beard room, confirmed ten sentences

The Court of Appeal, however, also granted slight discounts to ten other defendants, all involved in the "Falco" blitz of November 2017. From the interceptions it emerged how the mafiosi of Santa Maria di Gesù a few years ago tried to free themselves from the power of the Corleonesi“




They no longer digested the cumbersome role of Totò Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, although buried at 41 bis, and tried to free themselves from the power of the Corleonese. According to the Prosecutor's Office, between 2015 and 2016, the bosses of Santa Maria di Gesù and Villagrazia would have tried to reorganize the internal hierarchies of the districts and - as emerged from some wiretaps - they would have done so "democratically", ie by voting with a show of hands. , gathered in a shaving room. Now the fourth section of the Court of Appeal has decided to uphold 10 sentences and instead grant slight penalties to another 10 defendants, all involved in the "Falco" blitz of the carabinieri, carried out in November 2017.

I giudici hanno confermato le condanne di Salvatore Binario (un anno e 8 mesi), Pietro Cocco (14 anni), Giuseppe Contorno (14 anni), Gabriele Pedalino (12 anni), Lorenzo Scarantino (12 anni), Antonino Tinnirello (11 anni e 4 mesi), Francesco Vassallo (8 mesi), Riccardo Muratore (un anno), Santino D'Angelo (8 mesi) e di Eugenio Di Peri (un anno e 4 mesi).

The Court then decided to grant discounts to Giuseppe Gambino, who goes from 12 years to 10 years and 8 months, at Natale Giuseppe Gambino, who goes from 10 years to 7 years and 4 months, to Salvatore Gregoli, who goes from 16 years to 14 years and 8 months, to Francesco Immesi, from 6 to 5 years, to Antonino La Mattina, from 3 years to 2 years and 8 months (continuously), to Gaetano Messina from 16 to 14 years, to Antonino Palumbo from 14 years to 12 years and 8 months, to Francesco Pedalino from 10 to 8 years, to Pasquale Prestigiacomo from 6 years to 5 years and 4 months, and to Antonino Profeta from 10 to 8 years.

The defendants in the first instance had chosen the abbreviated one (the sentence was issued by the gup Ermelinda Marfia) and are defended, among others, by the lawyers Domenico La Blasca, Filippo Gallina, Angelo Formuso and Debora Speciale. However, 27 people were arrested with "Falco".

[scagghiuni]

33 arrests as Messina mafia clan busted
Charged with drug trafficking, illegal betting on horse races

https://www.ansa.it/english/news/genera ... 5eb9f.html

[Wiseguy]

Italian police swoop on mafia racket extorting €50 a coffin from funeral homes
Dawn raids in Puglia lead to about 40 arrests of suspected members of the ‘fifth mafia’
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo
November 16, 2020


An emerging mafia that ran a protection racket extorting €50 (£45) a coffin from funeral homes has been raided by hundreds of police in one of the largest ever such busts in the southern Italian region of Puglia.

Dawn raids centred on the city of Foggia led to the arrest of some 40 alleged members of a criminal organisation described by Italian authorities as the country’s “number one public enemy”.

Investigators have long recognised the threat from the four established mafia groupings – Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the ’Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Camorra in Naples and the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia – but have become increasingly concerned by the strength of the Foggia organisation, which some have called the “fifth mafia”.

The suspects, including the clan leaders Federico Trisciuoglio and Pasquale Moretti, were variously held on suspicion of belonging to a mafia organisation, usury and extortion against entrepreneurs and shopkeepers, including funeral homes.

According to prosecutors, the Foggia clans required funeral homes to pay a sum of €50 for each body. “The mafia even managed to bribe an employee of the local administration who provided them every day with a list of people who died in the city,” Ludovico Vaccaro, head prosecutor of Foggia, told the Guardian.

Vaccaro said that usury activities by the clans had become increasingly insistent in recent months, with the bosses taking “advantage of the difficulty entrepreneurs are finding themselves in during this pandemic”. Mobsters offered them loans with interest rates of over 400%.

“The Foggia mafia has become the number one public enemy of the state,” said the national anti-mafia prosecutor, Federico Cafiero De Raho. “But the state’s response against these bosses is getting stronger.”

A series of car bombings in Foggia in February prompted the interior ministry to send a team of anti-mafia investigators to Puglia.

“The Foggia mafia is relatively young,” Vaccaro told the Guardian earlier this year. “The clans that make up this organisation have been embedded in this territory for at least 30 years. We cannot compare them to the historical Italian mafia groups like Cosa Nostra and ’Ndrangheta, but it is a mafia characterised by a high degree of aggression and violence. It is what I call a primitive mafia – one that feeds cadavers to pigs, so as not to leave a trace.”

The mafia in Foggia province emerged in the late 1970s, when the head of the Neapolitan mafia Raffaele Cutolo met a delegation of local criminals in Puglia with the goal of “hiring” them into his organisation and extending his influence into the contraband trade in cigarettes in the Balkans.

Today, at least three criminal sub-groups operate in the area around Foggia. Besides the Società Foggiana, which profits from extortion and drug-dealing, there is the Cerignola clan, known for its armoured car heists and cocaine smuggling, and another group active around Gargano, on the spur of Italy’s “boot”, where 80% of killings go unsolved and whose bosses are believed to have killed 360 people.

“Today’s operation is important because it finally allows us to send a message to the entrepreneurs who are being oppressed by these mobsters,” said Vaccaro. “This operation must give them the courage to rebel and collaborate with the authorities. Only like this can we finally get rid of a mafia that is impoverishing our territory.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... eral-homes

[CabriniGreen]

Italian police swoop on mafia racket extorting €50 a coffin from funeral homes
Dawn raids in Puglia lead to about 40 arrests of suspected members of the ‘fifth mafia’
Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo
November 16, 2020


An emerging mafia that ran a protection racket extorting €50 (£45) a coffin from funeral homes has been raided by hundreds of police in one of the largest ever such busts in the southern Italian region of Puglia.

Dawn raids centred on the city of Foggia led to the arrest of some 40 alleged members of a criminal organisation described by Italian authorities as the country’s “number one public enemy”.

Investigators have long recognised the threat from the four established mafia groupings – Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the ’Ndrangheta in Calabria, the Camorra in Naples and the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia – but have become increasingly concerned by the strength of the Foggia organisation, which some have called the “fifth mafia”.

The suspects, including the clan leaders Federico Trisciuoglio and Pasquale Moretti, were variously held on suspicion of belonging to a mafia organisation, usury and extortion against entrepreneurs and shopkeepers, including funeral homes.

According to prosecutors, the Foggia clans required funeral homes to pay a sum of €50 for each body. “The mafia even managed to bribe an employee of the local administration who provided them every day with a list of people who died in the city,” Ludovico Vaccaro, head prosecutor of Foggia, told the Guardian.

Vaccaro said that usury activities by the clans had become increasingly insistent in recent months, with the bosses taking “advantage of the difficulty entrepreneurs are finding themselves in during this pandemic”. Mobsters offered them loans with interest rates of over 400%.

“The Foggia mafia has become the number one public enemy of the state,” said the national anti-mafia prosecutor, Federico Cafiero De Raho. “But the state’s response against these bosses is getting stronger.”

A series of car bombings in Foggia in February prompted the interior ministry to send a team of anti-mafia investigators to Puglia.

“The Foggia mafia is relatively young,” Vaccaro told the Guardian earlier this year. “The clans that make up this organisation have been embedded in this territory for at least 30 years. We cannot compare them to the historical Italian mafia groups like Cosa Nostra and ’Ndrangheta, but it is a mafia characterised by a high degree of aggression and violence. It is what I call a primitive mafia – one that feeds cadavers to pigs, so as not to leave a trace.”

The mafia in Foggia province emerged in the late 1970s, when the head of the Neapolitan mafia Raffaele Cutolo met a delegation of local criminals in Puglia with the goal of “hiring” them into his organisation and extending his influence into the contraband trade in cigarettes in the Balkans.

Today, at least three criminal sub-groups operate in the area around Foggia. Besides the Società Foggiana, which profits from extortion and drug-dealing, there is the Cerignola clan, known for its armoured car heists and cocaine smuggling, and another group active around Gargano, on the spur of Italy’s “boot”, where 80% of killings go unsolved and whose bosses are believed to have killed 360 people.

“Today’s operation is important because it finally allows us to send a message to the entrepreneurs who are being oppressed by these mobsters,” said Vaccaro. “This operation must give them the courage to rebel and collaborate with the authorities. Only like this can we finally get rid of a mafia that is impoverishing our territory.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... eral-homes

I saw this..... like Genny in season 3......

[mafiastudent]

Maxi anti-mafia operation at dawn, 101 suspects for the control of the Cosa Nostra drug (VIDEO)

https://www.blogsicilia.it/catania/maxi ... ra/563780/

A maxi anti-mafia operation by the carabinieri with 101 suspects is underway in Catania. The military of the weapon are executing a precautionary order of the Gip. The investigation by the Etna district prosecutor made it possible to clear the stronghold of drug trafficking and dealing, which, through various criminal groups, was under the direct control of Cosa Nostra. The DDA and the Arma military believe that they have cleared 12 imposing ‘dealing squares’ rooted in the popular district of San Giovanni Galermo, a historic ‘stronghold’ of drug trafficking and sales in the Etna capital.

In the operation, called ‘Skanderbeg’, 101 people are being investigated, recipients of a precautionary custody order issued by the Gip, accused, in various capacities, of mafia-type association, criminal association aimed at trafficking and dealing in drugs , with the aggravating circumstance of the mafia method and purpose, and for illegal possession and carrying of firearms.

The investigation, coordinated by the District Anti-Mafia Directorate and conducted by the operational nucleus of the Catania Fontanarossa Carabinieri Company, aims to disrupt the various criminal associations that managed 12 impressive “drug dealing squares” that operated starting from the San Giovanni Galermo district .

According to the Etnean Dda, “the various teams that managed the ‘shopping squares’ enjoyed clear autonomy in terms of territorial competence and organizational management, but they still acted under the direct control of the Nizza group belonging to the Cosa ‘family’. our Catania Santapaola-Ercolano family, who imposed the exclusive supply of the drug from the same group on the ‘square leaders’, established the costs and quantities of drugs to be purchased ”.

In the blitz, triggered after long investigations served to document the correlations with the mafia family of the various nuclei, over 400 carabinieri of the provincial command of Catania are engaged, supported by the military of the other provinces of Sicily and the specialized departments of the Arma: intervention company operational of the 12th Sicily Regiment, Sicily Hunters helicopter squadron, Helicopter unit and Dog unit

[mafiastudent]

Video in support of above article:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G24NZdWCh50

[mafiastudent]

Cosa Nostra and illegal betting: 15 arrests in Palermo

by Ricardo Lo Verso | From Live Sicilia

PALERMO – After the surrenders last June, the financial investigations on the Cosa Nostra betting agencies have continued until today’s blitz.

As delegated by the Public Prosecutor’s Office , the investigation is coordinated by the Deputy Prosecutor Salvo De Luca and by the deputies Dario Scaletta and Maria Pio Ticino, the financiers of the provincial command of Palermo , have executed an order signed by the judge for preliminary investigations Walter Turturici towards fifteen people, including well-known faces.

You are in prison: Salvatore Rubino, 59, Vincenzo Fiore, 42, Christian Tortora, 44, Rosario Chianello, 48, Michelangelo Guarino, 43, and Giovanni Di Noto, 46.

Nine under house arrest : Salvatore Barrale, 63, Maurizio Di Bella, 46, Pasquale Somma, 50, Giovanni Castagnetta, 36, Davide Catalano, 41 ( from April 2019 he receives 900 euros per month of citizenship income whose disbursement will be suspended), Giacomo Bilello, 36, Pietro Montalto, 31, Antonio Inserra, 55, and Salvatore Lombardo, 36.

They are accused in various ways of criminal association aimed at the abusive exercise of bets and fraud against the State, and fraudulent transfer of values.

The investigating judge ordered the preventive seizure of 6 betting agencies in Palermo and in the province of Naples, for a total estimated value of about one million euros. Over 100 soldiers are carrying out in Sicily and Campania.

In the first tranche of the investigation called “All-in” five “mafia companies” that had acquired the state concessions issued by the Customs and Monopoly Agency for the collection of games and sports bets were seized.

Then, however, as already reconstructed in this article of recent months, it was discovered that there was an illegal and parallel gaming network.

The anti-mafia specialists of the Gico of the Palermo economic-financial police unit have developed a second line of investigation. Two distinct criminal associations would have been organized, parallel but both attributable to Salvatore Rubino who, as it had emerged a few months ago, would have used mafia capital for his takeover. The two organizations ran a betting round of no less than 2.5 million euros per month .

The first criminal group, headed by Vincenzo Fiore and Christian Tortora and made up of Salvatore Barrale, Maurizio Di Bella, Pasquale Somma and Giovanni Castagnetta, managed a network of agencies entrusted to trusted people, called masters.

The second organization, which also managed betting centers through which illicit collection operated, had Chianello Rosario and Guarino Michelangelo as prominent figures and made use of the collaboration of Giovanni Di Noto, known as “Gianfranco”, already arrested on charges of being an element prominent member of the La Noce mafia family.

Davide Catalano, Giacomo Bilello, Pietro Montalto, Antonio Inserra and Salvatore Lombardo were also part of this criminal group.

The illegal collection of bets took place through the “screen” of agencies authorized by the Monopolies. The under-the-counter managers accepted bets that were not managed on the official network but through illegal foreign platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC07XWuORV4

[scagghiuni]

Businessman probed for recycling 136 bn for mafias
Roberto Recordare threatened prosecutor with bomb attack

(ANSA) - REGGIO CALABRIA, 27 NOV - A businessmen from Palmi in Calabria was placed under investigation Friday on suspicion of planning to launder some 136 billion euros for Italy's three main mafias, 'Ndrangheta in Calabria, Cosa Nostra in Sicily and the Camorra in Campania.
The man, Roberto Recordare, was believed to have been the brains of a vast money laundering scheme on behalf of the three mafias, police said.
Some 36 billion of the Mob cash was already ready, police said.
Recordare managed a 500 billion euro fund, according to prosecutor papers ANSA has seen.
The businessman is believed to have been a "confidential subject reserved by 'Ndrangheta" who also worked for the other two mafias.
Recordare was caught on phone taps threatening the life of Reggio Calabria prosecutor Giulia Pantano with reference to a possible bomb attack.
He was also caught talking about his interests in Malta.
Referring to the car bomb that killed Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, he laughed, saying "they were still picking up the pieces of her in Malta". (ANSA).

[Wiseguy]

Police ‘investigating’ suspected Italian mafia money launderer
Reports he planned to launder “billions” for mafia associates
Jacob Borg
December 8, 2020


An Italian national suspected of planning to launder “billions” for mafia associates is being investigated by the Financial Crimes Investigation Department, a police spokesman confirmed.

Roberto Recordare is the owner of two companies in Malta – Golem Malta Limited and Recordare Holding.

The two companies are ostensibly in the software business. Golem’s Italian website describes it as a software provider to local public administration entities in Sicily.

According to Italian media reports, wire taps captured Recordare speaking about his interests in Malta and mocking the death of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, days after she was killed by a car bomb in Bidnija, in October 2017.

Contacted by Times of Malta, a police spokesman confirmed an investigation was underway by the anti-money laundering unit but declined to provide further details.

Recordare told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that he only learned of the money-laundering allegations from Italian media reports.

He reportedly referred to the whole matter as a “farce”.

Recordare told ICIJ that the “hypothetical bank transactions have nothing to do with the mafia and relate to my consulting services for third parties… managed within international contexts.”

Public records show the two companies controlled by Recordare banked with Bank of Valletta, according to the last available accounts filed for Golem Malta Limited and Recordare Holding for 2017.

When contacted by Times of Malta, a BOV official said the bank was not in a position to divulge information relating to any of its customers.

The official said, however, that during the past 18 months BOV had closed accounts of many personal and company banking customers whose operations did not fit into the bank’s risk framework.

Both companies in question have their registered addresses at RSM Malta in Żebbuġ, who also audit the companies.

Apart from his interests in Malta, Recordare is also believed to have established a web of bank accounts across the globe in jurisdictions known for their lax anti-money laundering controls.

Reports say Italian investigators suspect Recordare was prepared to move some €36 billion on behalf of mafia clans as part of a wider €136 billion laundering scheme.

https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/ ... rer.837632