`Ndrangheta: operation by the state police against the gangs of the Eeggio Calabria and Catanzaro district and their offshoots in the Umbria region
The State Police, under the direction of the District Attorneys of Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria, directed by the Prosecutors Nicola Gratteri and Giovanni Bombardieri, carried out 27 restrictive measures arranged by the GIPs of the Courts of Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria against members of the gangs TRAPASSO and MANNOLO of San Leonardo di Cutro and COMMISSO of Siderno and seized assets worth about 10 million, which showed significant projections in Umbria.
The operation of the Catanzaro DDA, called "Infectio", conducted by the Central Operative Service and the Mobile Teams of Perugia and Catanzaro, has resulted in the issuance by the Catanzaro GIP of 23 of precautionary measures (20 in prison and 3 under house arrest) towards as many subjects, held responsible, in various ways, for mafia association, association aimed at trafficking in drugs, detention and concealment of clandestine weapons, threats, private violence, criminal association aimed at consuming a series of accounting crimes o financial-economic instruments instrumental to the systematic implementation of fraud against the banking system.
Specifically, the investigation, exploring what emerged already in the "Malapianta" operation of last May, revealed the continuing operation of the ndrangheta thighs MANNOLO, ZOFFREO and TRAPASSO of San Leonardo di Cutro (KR) and their projection into the territory Umbrian, where, through stable connections with the parent company, they had established a lucrative drug trade, also with the complicity of Albanian traffickers, undermined, through extortion, the free competition in the execution of construction works, as well as activating themselves in favor of candidates for local administrative elections.
Moreover, the criminal association, which is also disputed with the possession of weapons, had polluted the economic fabric through the predisposition of societies, often registered as nominees or non-existent subjects, able to offer illicit products (first of all invoices for non-existent operations) to favor of complacent entrepreneurs: Business, the latter, which has also seen the involvement of contiguous subjects to the ndragheta vibonese and which has allowed the association to make substantial profits through sophisticated scams to the detriment of various credit institutions and complex money laundering operations of criminal origin.
At the same time as the execution of the personal precautionary measures, the company therefore proceeded to seize numerous companies based in Umbria, Lazio and Lombardy through which the criminal organization carried out the aforementioned economic and financial crimes.
At the same time, with the operation, called "Core Business", the District Attorney of Reggio Calabria, in the context of investigations conducted by the Mobile Squads of Reggio Calabria and Perugia, has given execution to an ordinance of application of the measure of the custody in jail, with simultaneous decree of preventive seizure, issued by the GIP at the Court of Reggio Calabria against 4 subjects deemed responsible for mafia association as top leaders and belonging to the `ndrangheta COMMISSO di Siderno (RC) gang.
Among them is the historic leader "u quagghia", released from jail last January 2019.
In particular, today's investigations - which represent the natural continuation of the "Maple-Siderno Connection" operation - have made it possible to ascertain the enduring activity of the association of the Siderno COMMISSO and have been started at the 2015, when the leader, after a long period of detention, he settled in Perugia, Casa del Diavolo, to serve the measure of home detention, which allowed him to reconnect with other leading members of the association as the entrepreneurial referent in Umbria of the CRUPI family.
Precisely with this subject, the historic leader faced the problem of safeguarding the assets of the CRUPI from probable ablative measures of the Judicial Authority; through which the boss sent messages to other members of Siderno, and identified land in the Perugia area to be used for vineyards for the production of wine to be marketed in Canada.
The same also maintained contacts in Umbria with representatives of other `ndranghetistico organizations operating in the province of Crotone (precisely with members of the local San Leonardo di Cutro, investigated in the Catanzarese investigation), with whom he shared dynamics and questions of an associative nature and planned initiatives common entrepreneurial
Among the recipients of the precautionary measure of the GIP of Reggio Calabria, with a prominent role, also the son 36enne of the historic leader, already involved in the operation "Crime", during which he was identified as "Head young".
The “Core Business” operation sheds light on the economic interests of the COMMISSO gang and on relations with professionals and managers, as a subject, a reference businessman for the organization, especially in Umbria.
Some subjects are also under investigation for having carried out simulated actions - aimed at facilitating the mafia association - which with the system of "Chinese boxes" developed to shield the economic heritage and conceal the actual properties, contributed to conceal the full and effective traceability owned by the CRUPI brothers of a company in the province of Arezzo, subject to a preventive seizure decree.
The company - already subject to preventive seizure ordered by the Court of Latina - is an entrepreneurial activity in the real availability of the CRUPI and of the sidernese criminal consortium, instrumental to the realization of the criminal program of the coterie.
Proof of this is, according to the GIP, the fact that it was the object of intervention also by the historical leader who, fearing the seizure, did his best to safeguard the integrity of the economic possessions of the group which the aforementioned company was obviously part of.