Camorra, the entrepreneur Fontana lost the load of 600 kg of cocaine destined for Australia

Naples - The entrepreneur Giovanni Fontana was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his key role in an ambitious attempt to ship a large quantity of cocaine to Australia, (which was later lost) with the complicity of the former international drug trafficker Raffaele Imperiale, now a collaborator of justice.

According to the meticulous investigations coordinated by the Anti-Mafia Prosecutor's Office of Naples, Fontana allegedly managed the logistics for the concealment of 600 kilograms of cocaine inside a load of porphyry stones destined for Sydney. The drugs, divided into blocks, some of which bore a logo similar to that of a well-known Swiss watch brand, were destined for an Australian contact identified as "Mark".

The cocaine was hidden in a load of porphyry stones

The plan was that Fontana, through his transport companies, prepared two containers containing four porphyry platforms, inside a hollow cube carved out of the stones the cocaine would have been hidden. The cargo, with a company from Castel Volturno (Caserta) as the apparent sender, was supposed to reach Australia by ship, departing from the port of Naples.

For his crucial role in the organization, Fontana was supposed to receive a compensation of 600 thousand euros. His task consisted of taking charge of the large quantity of drugs, storing them in a warehouse in the Caserta area (identified by investigators), arranging for their concealment in porphyry and guarding the drugs until they were delivered to the forwarder in charge of transporting the containers to the port of Naples.

However, the large shipment of cocaine disappeared during the voyage, with the most widely believed hypothesis being that it was lost in its home port of Sydney.

The entrepreneur Fontana, in prison since the end of 2022, was arrested as part of an operation that uncovered trafficking of over 600 blocks of cocaine headed to Australia, involving leading figures in international drug trafficking, including the boss Raffaele Imperiale. The international investigation had brought to light a vast drug dealing network with ramifications between Italy and Australia.

According to the prosecution, between November 2020 and January 2021, a well-structured criminal organization exported the large load of cocaine, hiding it in porphyry to evade customs controls.

Along with Imperiale, Bruno Carbone and Daniele Ursini, considered the leaders of the organization, capable of giving directions and maintaining contact with the Australian intermediary, would have coordinated the trafficking. A key operational role would have been assigned to David Charles Mirone, who would have directed the operations of packaging and concealing the drugs with the collaboration of Ciro Gallo, Luca Alvino and Giovanni Fontana.

Communications between members of the organization were carried out through encrypted channels. The illicit trafficking was aggravated by the large quantity of drugs and its transnational nature, involving several jurisdictions and requiring the collaboration of international authorities.

According to Raffaele Imperiale's statements, Fontana, nicknamed "the boor" in the intercepted conversations and owner of the company Fgm, should have received 500 thousand euros for that transport, which then failed. Investigators have estimated illicit earnings between 6 and 8 million euros in over ten years of alleged "transports" managed by Fontana.

Imperiale's revelations, confirmed by the content of encrypted conversations decoded with the authorization of the French prosecutors of Lille and Paris, nailed the entrepreneur.

Imperiale also confirmed Fontana's involvement in two other trafficking operations involving large quantities of cocaine from Brazil (around six tons between 2008 and 2010) and from Holland (around ten shipments between 2017 and 2021), revelations already provided to investigators by his partner in Dubai, Bruno Carbone, and by Daniele Ursini, the cartel's reference figure in the Neapolitan area.

Despite Fontana's defense, which through lawyers Giovanni Cantelli and Stellato had raised numerous procedural exceptions and requested the questioning of many witnesses, the court deemed his guilt in the attempted international drug trafficking proven.