The Criminalpol International Police Cooperation Service removes Ferdinando Gallina, the "Cosa Nostra" mafia killer from the USA

Ferdinando GALLINA, known as Freddy, born in 1977, hit by three custody orders in prison and held responsible for three murders aggravated by the mafia, belonging to "Cosa Nostra", finally returns to Italy after a battle to obtain his extradition which lasted almost 5 years.

The arrival today in Fiumicino of GALLINA, escorted by the men of the Service for International Police Cooperation (SCIP), is to be considered an extraordinary Italian success because a very dangerous criminal discounts the sentences inflicted on him in prison: a result made possible by the implementation of exchanges information, operational and investigative methodologies with the United States, strongly supported by the Prefect Vittorio Rizzi, Deputy Director General of Public Security.

The procedural process that led to the extradition of GALLINA, a man of honor of the Carini mafia family and a mafia killer, lasted 5 years, considered the right arm for western Sicily, and in particular for the province. of Palermo, of the boss Salvatore Lo Piccolo.

Gallina was arrested for the first time in 2008 as part of the “Addio Pizzo” investigation of the investigative unit of the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri of Palermo. After a period of detention, at the end of 2014, he was released from prison and subjected to the preventive measure of the special surveillance with the obligation to stay in the municipality of Carini (PA), from which he had left in January 2016 and made himself untraceable.

GALLINA's trail, followed by Carabinieri investigators, led to the United States where, in fact, he was arrested in November 2020 by FBI and New York Immigration Custom Enforcement personnel, to whom he had been reported for the irregular presence on US territory, where he had entered with false documents from Canada.

Meanwhile, in Italy, the GIP at the Court of Palermo issued against the fugitive, following the convergent declarations of co-defendants in the same proceedings, three other different precautionary custody orders in prison because he was held responsible for three murders aggravated by the purpose of facilitate “Cosa Nostra”, committed in 1999 and 2000.

In 2017, the Italian Ministry of Justice, informed by the International Police Cooperation Service of the tracing of GALLINA in New York, requested his extradition in relation to the first precautionary detention order for which he had become unavailable and, subsequently , has integrated the request for provisional arrest for extraditional purposes also for the two restrictive measures issued against him for the murders of the mafia.

In the USA, GALLINA, as a leading figure in the Sicilian mafia, made use of a very high level technical defense that used every legal instrument provided for by American legislation to prevent the feared return to Italy.

In January 2020, the President of the Anti-Mafia Parliamentary Commission, who was on a mission in New York and Washington, also addressed the GALLINA case with the highest US local authorities including the Minister of Justice, the directors of DEA and FBI, the two District attorneys of New York (Manhattan and Brooklyn) and various heads of UN agencies that deal with international cooperation in criminal matters.

With the observance of all the envisaged health protocols, SCIP personnel flew to New York last week for the extradition of GALLINA, closing the circle of a five-year uninterrupted job, including through the Italian security expert a New York which in the field, alongside the FBI, has closely followed all judicial and investigative developments.

Extradited Gallina, Killer of "Cosa Nostra"