Smuggling of foreign tobacco, GdF Caserta dismantles criminal organization: 12 personal precautionary measures for criminal association 16 vehicles seized.
This morning, at the end of a complex investigative activity coordinated by the Naples Public Prosecutor's Office - District Anti-Mafia Directorate - soldiers belonging to the Economic-Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Caserta executed an order issued by the GIP of the Neapolitan Court which ordered the application of 12 measures restricting personal freedom against an equal number of suspects for the crime of criminal association aimed at smuggling foreign manufactured tobacco, with an operational base in the provinces of Naples and Caserta, as well as the related decree of preventive seizure of 16 vehicles used for the transport of cigarettes.
The subjects to whom the order is addressed are seriously suspected of having formed and been part of a criminal association operating in the Neapolitan territory and active in the commission of multiple crimes concerning the smuggling of foreign manufactured tobacco from Eastern European countries (Poland, Hungary and Ukraine) to be sold, mainly, in Campania.
The execution of the precautionary measures is the epilogue of a complex investigative activity carried out - with the coordination of the Neapolitan DDA - through the cross-referencing of data resulting from telephone and environmental interceptions, video recordings, observation, control and shadowing activities and numerous operational checks, which allowed, in the period from 2018 to 2021, the arrest in flagrante delicto of the crime of smuggling of 41 individuals, the seizure of over 31 tons of contraband cigarettes, no. 4 articulated trucks, no. 6 vans and no. 24 cars used for the illicit activity.
The investigations have allowed us to reveal the existence of a well-structured criminal organization, with transnational projection, and to identify, furthermore, 11 warehouses used for the storage of cigarettes located in different regions of the national territory but mainly in Campania.
The investigations revealed that the criminal gang made use of numerous vehicles fictitiously registered to third parties or rented from car rental companies, specifically modified to conceal the goods, to transport the contraband cigarettes, as well as freight forwarders unaware of the illicit product being transported.
Article published on November 30, 2021 - 13:17
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