The Bari State Police carried out 16 definitive sentences, issued by the Attorney General at the Bari Court of Appeal, against as many subjects, convicted with a final sentence following the ruling of the Supreme Court of Cassation with residual penalties that they range from 3 months to 13 years in prison.
The subjects were held responsible, for various reasons, for mafia-type criminal association, external competition in mafia-type criminal association, extortion aggravated by the mafia method, possession and carrying of a common firearm aggravated by the purpose of facilitating a mafia-type association, personal injury, trespassing, invasion of land and buildings, theft and theft in homes, illicit competition with threats and violence in competition and aggravated by the mafia method, aiding and abetting and threats.
Today's activity, which involved Bari and other provinces of the national territory, with the use of the policemen of the Flying Squad and the help of crews from the Crime Prevention Unit and the IX Flight Department, is the judicial epilogue of the operation " Do ut Des ", an investigation developed by the Bari Mobile Squad which led in March 2016 to the issue, by the GIP of the Bari Court, at the request of the local District Anti-Mafia Directorate, of a precautionary custody order against 31 subjects held responsible, for various reasons, for the crimes described above.
The investigative activity of the Bari Mobile Squad documented the criminal work of the mafia association called the "Parisi" clan, operating in Bari and in some municipalities of the province which, through the capillary and systematic control of the territory, managed numerous illegal activities; the hegemony of the clan in the area of influence was developed in a variegated way, also through the monitoring and management of social housing units and, above all, through infiltration into building sites.
The declarations made by some entrepreneurs who were extorted, as well as the numerous technical activities, made it possible to acquire convergent and univocal elements of responsibility against a criminal structure, directed and organized by PARISI Savino cl. 60, with an operational base in the Japigia district of Bari, dedicated to continuously committing extortion in the construction sector through seriously intimidating conducts, although not always committed with acts of physical violence.
The investigation brought to light a system that saw the building contractors themselves interact directly and without any scruple, with the leaders of the clan in order to obtain orders and employment, significantly altering the rules of the market and free competition.
The investigations amply documented how the clan infiltrated, exploiting it, into the activity of the Bari construction entrepreneur, ending up making important business choices, imposing trustworthy companies or even "mafia companies", thus indirectly determining the prices of supplies and works , on which to then claim a percentage, according to a preliminary synallagmatic agreement.
From the complex of the investigative acts it emerged clearly that the extortions were carried out no longer or not only through the violent request for "protection money" or the hiring of a guardian chosen among the trusted men of the criminal association, but through an articulated system of relations of members of the Parisi clan with entrepreneurs in the construction sector which provided for the imposition of companies that had to win subcontracts or orders for supplies and works; an extortion system which included the involvement of "friendly" companies and which allowed the clan to profit from the revenues of the subcontractors imposed and which had obtained the contract.
The convictions confirmed in recent days by the Supreme Court of Cassation, which largely upheld those imposed by the Bari Court of Appeal, concern the top members of the Parisi clan, including the undisputed head of the criminal organization under investigation, reached by the notification of the measure while he is detained in the Terni Prison for the same cause.