Two hundred soldiers from the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Reggio Calabria and SCICO, under the coordination of the local Public Prosecutor's Office - District Anti-Mafia Directorate, headed by Dr. Giovanni Bombardieri, are executing - with the support of other Departments of the Corps, in the provinces of Reggio Calabria, Catania, Messina, Vibo Valentia, Salerno, Milan and Pavia - restrictive measures of personal freedom, issued by the GIP Section of the Court of Reggio Calabria, against 24 individuals (15 in prison and 9 under house arrest) involved in international drug trafficking.
The activity under review is the development of a previous operation – called “Magma” – also carried out by the Organized Crime Investigation Group (GICO) of the Economic and Financial Police Unit of Reggio Calabria and by the SCICO, directed by the Reggio Calabria Prosecutor's Office – which would have allowed the dismantling of a well-known 'ndrangheta clan active in the province of Reggio – concluded in November 2019 with the execution of 45 personal precautionary measures.
In detail - at the stage of the proceedings and subject to subsequent assessments regarding the effective and definitive determination of responsibility - today's operation would have confirmed the strength and capillarity, both on a national and international scale, of the Calabrian narcos, who continue to position themselves as privileged interlocutors with the most qualified world organizations, guaranteeing ever greater reliability.
The availability of large amounts of capital of illicit origin and the marked ability to manage the various segments and hubs of the trafficking have allowed the organization under investigation, which was allegedly promoted and directed by a top member of the aforementioned Reggio family, to consolidate a significant role in international drug trafficking by making use, among other things, of preferential and tested foreign supply channels.
The criminal group, which used encrypted cell phones or public telephone booths to communicate, interfaced with different organizations having their operational bases in Albania and Brazil.
In this context, it was discovered that the organization was able to bring large quantities of cocaine from Brazil, stored in Switzerland, to then be transported to Lombardy and sold to specific buyers, among whom was an Albanian individual of particular criminal importance.
Following problems related to the payment of the narcotic, given the solid relationships in place, a member of the Brazilian supplying organization even went to Calabria to meet the head of the criminal organization, to reach a solution.
Before the meeting – monitored by investigators – in order to make the importance of the person he was about to meet clearly understood, one of the suspects revealed to the Brazilian referent the criminal calibre of his master, flaunting, in order to dispel any doubts, the content of press articles from which the calibre of the criminal gang to which he belonged stood out.
The investigation would also have allowed us to discover how the criminal gang produced, on its own, large quantities of cannabis indica, taking care of the subsequent processing (drying, desiccation, weighing and packaging).
Indeed, during the activity it emerged that the suspects, in order to diversify and intensify the flourishing illicit activity, had created a marijuana cultivation in a rural area of the Municipality of Candidoni (RC) in which 1227 cannabis plants were found and seized, as well as 74 kg of the same narcotic substance, allowing the arrest of two of the responsible parties, caught in the act.
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The criminal organization also ran a consolidated drug distribution business through the use of special couriers, always ready to supply multiple “drug dealing locations”, acting as a shuttle between the Calabrian and Sicilian territories. In fact, on one occasion, an affiliate was arrested in flagrante delicto while he was about to embark for Sicily.
Article published on 27 October 2022 - 08:25
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