The State Police of Cosenza, in the early morning today, has implemented the order for the application of the personal precautionary measure, issued by the investigating judge at the Court of Cosenza, following a request from the local Public Prosecutor, directed by dr. Mario Spagnuolo, against five subjects held responsible, in various capacities and in some episodes in competition, for the crimes referred to in Articles 644 cp, 629 cp, 132 d.leg. nr. 385/1993 as modified by art. 39 of the L. nr. 262 of 2005 (usury, extortion and abusive exercise of credit).
Specifically to three subjects (BA of 43 years of Cosenza, BM of 52 years of Mendicino and MS of 51 years of Cosenza) the measure of precautionary custody in prison was applied, to one (PP of 73 years of Cosenza) the measure of house arrest and finally to another (CS of 64 years of Cosenza) the coercive measure of the prohibition of residence in the municipalities of Cosenza and Rende.
The investigative activity stems from the complaint filed in June 2018 at the Police Headquarters by one of the victims of usury, following which the IV section "Offenses against property and the PA" of the Cosenza mobile team, with the coordination of the local Public Prosecutor's Office , started an articulated investigative activity, which made use of interceptions, stalking and observation services and which at the end allowed to identify a group of usurers who, acting each independently and only in some circumstances one of them in competition with others, they lent money to the victims, all in need, in exchange for demanding the return of exorbitant sums of money. The latter, when they did not comply with the payment, were heavily intimidated by the usurers, even with explicit and serious death threats.
Among the sixteen confirmed victims, in addition to the unemployed and retired, there are mostly workers but also craftsmen, bricklayers, painters and washers.
They entered into a serious debt spiral, given the unsustainable usurious interest rates that were imposed on them; in some cases they were forced to give ATMs and postepay cards; in one of the many reconstructed cases, the usury rate applied to a victim on a monthly basis reached 57%, reaching 230% on a bimonthly basis and even, on a quarterly basis, 850% (requests for a refund of € 6.200, within three months, against an initial loan of 1.400 euros, with the promise, in case of further non-compliance, of the grant of 12.400 euros).
One of the victims, who turned to the usurers for the extreme economic difficulty in which she was exposed due to the compulsive vice of the game, specifically that of the slot machines, was so desperate that she had manifested suicidal intentions and therefore determined to hospitalize herself in a Therapeutic Community for recovery from ludopathy.
The recipients of the restrictive measure in prison, after the formalities of the rite, were translated at the Circondarial House of Cosenza.
During the searches carried out at the same time as the execution of the restrictive measures, documents, agendas and a sort of "ledger" were found in the homes of the suspects in which the amounts of sums granted on a usurious basis and the names of the victims were noted.
In the current emergency phase from Covid-19, the State Police and the Public Prosecutor of Cosenza are particularly attentive to monitoring and contrasting the threat of local organized and common crime, which with the availability of "dirty" capital tends to offer usurious loans or finance the liquidity crisis of small companies and families who, in a time of extreme economic suffering such as the one in progress, are unable to cope with payments and daily expenses.