The Trento State Police, with the coordination of the Central Operations Service and the collaboration of the policemen of the Brescia, Verona and Vicenza Mobile Squads, arrested 16 Nigerian nationals for drug trafficking.
The investigations, directed by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Trento - District Anti-Mafia Directorate - allowed to disrupt a Nigerian criminal association, based in Verona, but dedicated to controlling retail outlets in Trento.
16 individuals arrested, including 13 men and 3 three women, the latter particularly active also in the exploitation of prostitution in the Scaligero capital. Part of the proceeds deriving from paid sex were used by the leaders of the organization, a man and a woman, respectively mother and son resident in Verona, to purchase lots of heroin and cocaine in Vicenza.
The city of Palladio was identified as the place where the drugs were stored, ready to be delivered to the couriers who went to Trento daily from Verona.
While the leaders of the association resided in the capital of Verona, where the leaders, mother and son, managed a shop of Nigerian ethnic products near the Verona fair.
During the investigative activities it was ascertained that precisely in the city of Verona, meetings were held between the leaders and the participants of the criminal association to resolve the conflicts, which arose between the various pushers, regarding the subdivision of the drug dealing areas in Trento as well as the division of the proceeds. of the sale of drugs and the percentage to be set aside to support the legal costs of the associates, in case they were arrested.
Trento, had been identified by the leaders of the Nigerian criminal group as a "drug dealer", where the numerous drug dealers, loaded with narcotic substances, converge to sell drugs, partly also ingested to escape police controls,
In the Trentino capital, sellers and customers met daily in the gardens of Piazza Dante as well as in the streets in front of the railway yard. Before going to sell, the drug dealers were given instructions by the leaders of the organization on how to circumvent police checks.
In particular, keeping the doses of heroin to be sold in the oral cavity, upon payment of a sum of money ranging between 20 and 40 euros, in relation to the weight of the single dose, 1 gram or 0,5 grams. As soon as a crew of the State Police approached to carry out a check, the order provided for the doses to be ingested; so that at the time of the search the pusher was devoid of the psychotropic substance.
However, even this expedient was circumvented by the investigators, intent on filming with video surveillance tools, the moment of the exchange with the buyer and promptly, if the dealer had ingested the drugs, to take them, in agreement with the Public Prosecutor of Trento , at the Santa Chiara hospital to carry out a diagnostic test, such as to reveal that they had ingested psychotropic substance.
During the investigations, which lasted about a year, there were episodes in which the danger and disregard for the life of the members of the association, of the entire criminal group disjointed this morning, came to light.
On some occasions the strength of the associative bond between the various pushers has been so strong as to induce the latter not to have any fear of addressing with an arrogant tone, and in some cases even threatening, the agents of the Trento Police Headquarters intent on the activity. control of the area around the Trento station. In the same way, impetuous actions by the pushers to escape arrest were recorded, which endangered the very lives of the latter.
In particular, in July 2019, one of the drug dealers, arrested in the act because he was caught selling heroin to a young man from Trentino, turned to the agents of the Trento police headquarters, who were taking him to prison, saying: "... I'm a drug dealer but today you don't work with me .. "to testify to an arrogance and a presumption of being untouchable.
Subsequently, in November 2019, another drug dealer, also part of the Nigerian criminal group, who had finished serving his prison sentence in Venice a month earlier, to escape arrest, after being taken to the “Santa Chiara ”in Trento to expel the ingested doses, did not hesitate to throw herself from the second floor of the hospital, about 10 meters above the ground, in order not to be taken to prison, sustaining two fractures at the lumbar level. However, once discharged he was taken to prison by the police.