The State Police of Ragusa, on delegation of the District Anti-Mafia Directorate of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Catania, carried out 15 precautionary custody orders and 5 preventive seizures of a company in the plastic recycling sector.
The provision, ordered by the Judge for the Preliminary Investigations of Catania, has allowed to disarticulate a criminal association of a mafia type called "stidda". The alleged crimes, all committed with mafia methodology, include multiple aggravated extortion, illicit competition with threats, aggravated injuries, receiving stolen goods, detention and carrying of guns, damage followed by fire, illicit trafficking of aggravated waste.
The investigations delegated by the Catania District Prosecutor's Office and conducted by the State Police, began in 2014 following a seizure, operated in Rome, of footwear containing materials harmful to health. The existence of an organization dedicated to the traffic of plastic waste was hypothesized, acquired by collection and storage companies based in the provinces of Ragusa and Catania and exported to China, where they were used for the manufacture of shoes, then imported into Italy and marketed despite containing toxic substances.
In the investigative hypothesis, the waste plastic materials - coming from the Hyblaean territory - were recovered mainly from the tarpaulins of the greenhouses of the Vittorio Veneto, and were polluted by highly toxic agents (pesticides and pesticides). A complex and articulated investigation activity was launched, carried out by the policemen of the Mobile Squads of Catania and Ragusa with the coordination of the Central Operational Service, from which it emerged that the main Victorian companies active in the sector of collection and transformation of plastic waste procured covering sheets periodically discarded from the greenhouses present in the territory included between the provinces of Ragusa, Syracuse and Caltanissetta. Frictions and conflicts between the parties concerned were ascertained during the period of disposal of the greenhouse roofing sheets, also by virtue of the significant economic value of the sector, equal to several million euros per year.
Consequently there was a strong competition between the companies that dealt with the collection of plastic, which tried to obtain a monopoly, also through the use of mafia intimidation. The policemen therefore ascertained that part of the recipients of today's precautionary measure belonged to a "stidda" mafia-type association, aimed, through the intimidation force of the associative bond and the condition of subjugation and silence that derives from it, to commit an indeterminate series of crimes against individual safety, personal freedom, property and to acquire directly or indirectly the management or in any case the control of economic activities related to the collection and recycling of discarded plastic from the greenhouses persisting in Vittoria and in the provinces of Ragusa and Caltanissetta. In particular, it was found that the system put in place by the suspects was aimed at obtaining the exclusive transfer of the plastic discarded from greenhouses to a particular company, so much so that the Judge for Preliminary Investigations applied the precautionary measure in their comparisons for the crime of outside competition in mafia association.
The subjects, owners of several plants for the recycling of plastic materials, were able to obtain this economic advantage through the systematic intimidation of the shutters and plastic pickers, implemented by the mafia association, acquiring a position of substantial monopoly in the sector. Of importance in the story is the position of a subject, who, after completing the course as a collaborator of justice, returned from 2013 to Vittoria, where over the years 80 / 90 had been responsible for atrocious crimes (among others more than 60 murders), assuming a fundamental role for the mafia association and placing itself at the head of a historical clan. On this occasion the same promoted, organized and directed the association, in agreement with an external competitor and with the help of another subject, recruiting and coordinating the activity of plastic collection. The intervention of the subject in the 2015 also allowed to reach a criminal agreement with a Gelese family (also affected by provisions of the Nissena Judicial Authority in the 2016 for the same facts) for the division of the land.
It was also possible to reconstruct the dynamics of a serious intimidating act to obtain hegemony in the sector of profitable plastic collection and among the aggravating disputes there is also the availability of weapons by the suspects. Among the alleged crimes (only to 5 subjects), there is also the abusive management of large quantities of waste. The suspects illegally disguise the special sludge coming from the washing of the plastic, which are harmful because they are made up of soil mixed with fertilizers and pesticides. The waste was buried and covered with cement and asphalt or concealed by abusive spill in the land adjacent to the company or in other Vittoria lands, creating serious damage to the environment.
During the investigative period, the State Police also carried out checks by video recordings of the illegal disposal phases. The environmental crimes committed by the suspects made it possible to obtain greater profits, since the illegal disposal, without traceability (due to the absence of the FIR), was not conferred at an authorized landfill, with illicit abatement of costs; VAT was also evaded by plastics dealers, precisely because of this clandestine disposal. The Public Prosecutor also requested and obtained the preventive seizure of 5 companies attributable to the suspects. The total turnover of the seized companies amounts to approximately 5 million. Finally, a judicial administrator has been appointed, in order to allow the continuation of the entrepreneurial activity, safeguarding the workers.