He used data from lost identity documents to help drug traffickers fabricate false documents, also informing them of ongoing investigations against them.
These are the charges that led to the arrest of a Carabinieri officer, Pasquale Giuliani, 54, who until a little over a year ago was on duty in Molfetta (Bari), the same city where the Albanian criminal of whom he was allegedly an accomplice resided. Giuliani is under house arrest as part of the joint investigation by anti-mafia magistrates from Bari and Tirana into alleged transnational drug trafficking between Albania and Puglia, which led to 37 arrests in the two countries and the seizure of assets worth 4 million euros, including a coffee factory in Valona.
In Italy, 27 people have been arrested, 15 in prison and 12 under house arrest. Another ten suspects have been arrested in Albania. The contested facts date back to 2017-2018. According to reports, the carabiniere involved in the investigation, later transferred, was on duty at a station in the province of Bari where the drug trafficker lived. The investigation documents include wiretaps and the statements of two Albanian collaborators of justice. The precautionary custody order was signed by the investigating judge of the Court of Bari Giovanni Abbattista. The investigation was coordinated by the prosecutors of the DDA Ettore Cardinali, Lidia Giorgio and Daniela Chimienti.
The investigation, which began in 2017, revealed that "Puglia continues to be the main logistical base for Albanian criminal organizations - explains investigating judge Giovanni Abbattista who signed the arrest warrant - to sell narcotics throughout Italy". The results of this operation, the result of collaboration between the Italian DIA and the Albanian Police, with the contribution of Interpol and Criminalpol and the coordination of Eurojust, were presented by the national anti-mafia prosecutor Federico Cafiero De Raho, who spoke of "cooperation as the only tool to tackle drug trafficking".
“Even at this time when we will have to laboriously manage the recovery of our country – said General Giuseppe Governale, director of the DIA – we must take into account that if we do not work as a team, if we do not move dynamically and with the same strength that criminal organizations have, we will not obtain effective results”. In the two years of investigations, more than three and a half tons of drugs worth over 40 million euros were seized for a total of about 7 million doses, which were transported from the Albanian coast to the Adriatic coast aboard ocean-going dinghies and overland, in tourist campers. A “globalized crime” as defined by the prosecutor of Bari, Giuseppe Volpe, “capable of making use of local labor and even deviant personalities of the institutions”. The suspicion that there are also "responsibilities of the Albanian authorities who allowed this criminal activity", as explained by Arben Kraja, Special Prosecutor for Anti-Corruption and Organized Crime in Tirana, is at the basis of the further investigations launched by the Albanian judiciary.
Telephone interceptions, environmental interceptions, video recordings and observation, shadowing and control services, later supported by the statements of two collaborators of justice: these are among the elements that allowed the completion of the 'Kulmi' operation, conducted by the Anti-Mafia Investigation Directorate of Bari and the Albanian authorities, with the international assistance of the Interpol and 'Sirene' divisions of the Criminalpol, the inter-force liaison office of Tirana and the Albanian police, and with the collaboration in Italy of the Carabinieri, the State Police, the Guardia di Finanza and the DIA of Foggia, Lecce, Bologna, Rome, Naples and Catanzaro, against the international trafficking of large quantities of drugs on the axis between Albania and Italy. Two precautionary custody orders were carried out between the two nations, by order of the DDA of Bari and the Special Prosecutor's Office for Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime of Tirana, with the coordination of Eurojust (The Hague), against 37 people responsible for international trafficking of large quantities of drugs and seizure orders for a total of 4 million Euros.
The investigations (wiretaps and video recordings, supported by collaborators) have allowed, among other things, to arrest at sea in Molfetta (Bari), with the support of the Air and Naval Department of the Guardia di Finanza of the capital of Puglia, two traffickers from ALBANIA with over a ton of marijuana; to identify in Savelletri (Brindisi) a warehouse inside which were kept about 700 kilograms of the same drug (in addition to Kalashnikov bullets, electronic control units for vehicles, documents, balaclavas and three-pointed iron nails); to intercept in Palagiano (Taranto) an Italian courier while he was transporting over 6 kilos of marijuana destined for the Lucanian market; to arrest two Albanian women with over 2 kilos of marijuana in Bitonto (Bari) to seize some counterfeit Italian identity cards in ALBANIA, registered to unsuspecting citizens of Puglia, used by Albanians to expatriate to Northern Europe. In relation to this last finding, a precautionary measure, house arrest, was carried out against a member of the Italian Police Force who, in addition to participating in the crime of manufacturing false identification documents, illegally provided information taken from the Database of the Ministry of the Interior. Overall, approximately three and a half tons of drugs including marijuana, cocaine and hashish were seized, depriving criminal associations of proceeds estimated at over 40 million euros, for a total of approximately 7 million single doses obtainable from retail dealing.
The investigating judge of the Court of Bari, Giovanni Abbattista, accepting the investigative findings of the DDA and recognising, among other things, the existence of the aggravating circumstance of the 'transnationality' of the crime, highlighted "that Puglia, as already demonstrated by the DIA with the Shefi operation - continues to constitute the main logistical base of Albanian criminal organisations for selling narcotics throughout the Italian territory". The precautionary measures, against 10 Italians and 27 Albanians transferred both to prison (25) and to house arrest (12), were carried out between Italy (in the provinces of Bari, Bat, Rome, Lecce, Matera and Pesaro-Urbino) and Albania (in execution of an international arrest warrant and a European Investigation Order).
Article published on 30 June 2020 - 22:00
