A veritable criminal structure built around football, designed to siphon off money through the legal and clandestine betting market. The legal proceedings, initiated in Naples and upheld on appeal, uncovered a network capable of manipulating sporting events to enrich the clan's coffers.
Agreements were made well in advance, deciding the final result or the individual phases of the game on which to concentrate enormous flows of money. Once the outcome of the game was established, bets were placed on various platforms and the proceeds were subsequently paid into the criminal group's coffers for division.
The division of roles
The investigations and subsequent trials on the merits have allowed us to reconstruct the precise hierarchy within the organization, outlining the specific responsibilities of the two defendants.
The operative physically attended the meetings where the matches were fixed, escorted the collaborators to the decisive locations and monitored the progress of the shares, knowing full well that the invested capital came from the clan's slush funds.
The top management of the organization, however, exercised a purely managerial role, attending the preparatory meetings and personally managing the distribution of illicit proceeds to the members.
The principle established by the Supreme Court
Rejecting the appeals, the Court of Cassation confirmed the sentences of one year and six months' imprisonment and a €1.500 fine for each defendant. The judges at the Palazzaccio also reaffirmed a fundamental legal principle for future investigations into soccer betting.
Criminal liability for complicity in sports fraud can also arise from simple indirect involvement, if this contributes to strengthening the overall criminal plan. Therefore, it is not necessary to have carried out the final act of placing a bet; simply knowing that one is acting to further the mafia organization's illicit goals is sufficient.
The article is very detailed but many doubts remain, especially about how the criminal network was created; it says that they had decided on the results beforehand but it is not clear what the actors were doing, the person who was supposed to control it was confused, the sentences seemed light and the judges said so, I hope they clarify everything soon.