TARANTO – The bis appeal against the defendants involved in the “Lampo” investigation ended with a confirmed conviction and eight sentence reductions: after the annulment of the Supreme Court which had ordered a second degree trial, the judges in the on the evening of April 24th they issued the verdict with which they confirmed the 20 years of imprisonment against Cataldo Caporosso, a Massafrese considered by the Lecce DDA to be the head of an association dedicated to drug trafficking that operated in the Taranto area. Furthermore, the new sentence slightly reduced the sentences for the other defendants: 11 years and 3 months for Tommaso Putignano, 7 years and 10 months for Michele Monaco, 7 years and 1 month for Cristiano Balsamo, 6 years and 10 months for Mario Miolla, 5 years and 4 months for Massimiliano Lovero, 5 years and 3 months for Valentino Antonio Laterza, 4 years for Ivano Andresini and 2 years and 1 month for Gianvito Gentile.
The investigation conducted by the Carabinieri and coordinated by the Anti-Mafia District Directorate of Lecce, for the prosecution, brought to light the existence and operation of a criminal group which, between January 2015 and November 2017, managed drug trafficking between the drug dealing squares of Taranto, Massafra, Mottola, Palagiano, Putignano and Casamassima. At the head of the group, as mentioned, was the Massafrese boss Cataldo Caporosso with whom Balsamo and Putignano collaborated and who interfaced with the various members of the association including Gentile, Laterza. Lovero and Monaco. The group for the DDA of Lecce had formed alliances with other consortia of Statte, Taranto and Putignano. A very close collaborator of Caporosso was Cristano Balsamo, defended by the lawyer Gaetano Vitale, who coordinated various activities: drug dealing in the squares of Massafra, Statte and Taranto, through Valentino Antonio Laterza and Massimiliano Lovero, the management of the “cassa” and finally put the group’s “Imperial Fit” gym in Massafra was available to the group for meetings or to hide the drugs. Furthermore, Balsamo also coordinated a “security team”, together with Laterza, Lovero and Michele Monaco, used according to the accusation for the execution of punitive expeditions, the “protection” and “escort” of the boss. And in the sentence, in fact, the judges confirmed the guilt of some defendants for an emblematic episode: it is a punitive expedition organized by Caporosso with some associates at the Taranto fish market to destroy a warehouse managed by the former partner of the Massafrese, but they considered that the “mafia methods” contested by the prosecution did not exist.
