At dawn this morning, the DIGOS of Modena with the collaboration of the Carpi Police Department, coordinated and under the direction of this Public Prosecutor’s Office, executed two separate precautionary orders applying to custody in prison, issued by the Judges for Preliminary investigations at the Court of Modena, against 20 male suspects, all of Pakistani origin, three of whom became Italian citizens.
The first order was issued against 18 people seriously suspected of participating in a criminal association under the name of the acronym known as ”AK- 47 Carpi”, dedicated to the commission of a variety of crimes such as extortion, personal injury, threats, self-laundering, illicit intermediation and labor exploitation, commonly known as “corporalism”.
The second order was issued against two suspects of Pakistani origin, living in the province of Brescia, seriously suspected of complicity in the attempted murder against a suspect accused of participating in the “AK-47 Carpi” association, recipient of the measure indicated above who, having hit vital points with slashes to the abdomen and hit with sticks and clubs, suffered injuries lasting more than 40 days. The attackers did not realize their murderous intent until the police arrived. The very serious episode occurred in Carpi on 6 October 2022; it involved the contrast between two distinct groups of Pakistani citizens (the one operating in Carpi and the one operating in the province of Brescia). In relation to the attempted murder of 6 October, in addition to the material perpetrators, 14 other men (thirteen of Pakistani origin and one of Indian origin) are under investigation for having participated in the punitive expedition that left from the province of Brescia. On this occasion, the suspects had arrived in Carpi aboard three cars armed with sticks, clubs, knives and hatchets.
On 7 April 2024 the victim of the attempted murder of 6 October 2022, in turn, in the accusatory hypothesis, became the co-author with three other co-investigators, two of whom were recipients of the first order, of an attempted murder carried out through a violent attack to the detriment of two other Pakistani citizens, carried out with sticks and machetes, actions for which the Modena Prosecutor’s Office, given the urgency and the danger of escape, ordered their arrest carried out by the Carabinieri of Carpi, subsequently validated by the Judge for the investigations preliminaries with application of custody in prison.
The complex and detailed investigative activity launched against the “AK 47 Carpi” association originated in the year 2021 following the courageous complaint of a worker who had suffered threats, culminating in a violent attack, on the occasion of a union meeting, by part of some of the suspects, following which he suffered serious injuries which healed in over five months of illness.
The painstaking investigative work has made it possible to hypothesize the existence of a criminal association, made up of foreign citizens of Pakistani origin domiciled mainly in the Carpi area, authors of serious criminal conduct carried out in implementation of the association’s program, in total obedience to the will and under the orders of the 30-year-old Pakistani citizen promoter.
Most of the suspects, at the time of the events, were employees of a logistics services company linked to the movement of goods with registered office in the Vicenza area, which had contracted the courier workforce to a well-known shipping company.
In particular, the suspects organized the recruitment of numerous workers of Pakistani nationality with the aim of assigning them to work for third parties, profiting from their wages by withholding a quota, in exploitative conditions.
The criminal action of the association, which acted under the name of “AK47 Carpi“, exploited the ability to create fear in the victims of the alleged crimes, through heavy and serious threats of retaliation both in Italy and in the country of origin to the detriment of relatives and friends.
By virtue of a consolidated relationship of trust and collaboration with a joint-stock company operating in the logistics and porterage sector, the members of the criminal association have fueled a lucrative “corporal” activity, being capable, whenever necessary, even without any warning and at night, to find low-cost labor to be used in the freight forwarders’ warehouses, transferring the workers to the workplace with private vehicles or those of the companies involved. Victims of the association’s criminal activities are in particular workers (therefore often co-workers) who are also predominantly of Pakistani origin.
Two of the suspects who were the recipients of the first precautionary order were, at the time of the facts, holding the position of RSA (Company Trade Union Representative) at two important shipping companies.
The workers who did not accept submission to the group suffered persecutory actions both in the workplace and in the personal sphere, even with punitive expeditions which ended with violent beatings, through the use of weapons and instruments suitable for offending (knives, iron clubs, wooden sticks, cricket bats and other blunt objects).
The conduct implemented, in addition to generating huge and unfair profits, has caused negative repercussions in the Carpi area, causing serious concern and serious social alarm, in particular following the episode of the violent attack with attempted murder and the violent brawl that occurred on the night of April 23, 2022, triggered by a split within the AK 47 group, when two factions clashed using weapons and objects designed to offend.
In some cases, investigations have highlighted that many workers were forced to return part of their salary to the head of the group or his most trusted collaborators on a monthly basis. According to typical models of criminal associations, the group was also responsible for providing a sort of ”protectornAnd” towards fellow countrymen by intervening on their behalf to resolve any problems that arise in the workplace and beyond, carrying out violent actions against customers guilty of having complained about the inefficiency of the courier service.
The analysis of the banking documentation, relating to the relationships between the client companies and the four individual businesses attributable to the head of the organisation, with the movement in a few months of sums of money exceeding one and a half million euros, has allowed, also thanks to the collaboration of the Economic and Financial Police Unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Modena, to reconstruct the procedures adopted in order to send illegal payments to workers.
Most of the casual workers employed for night shifts, all of foreign origin, were unemployed or employed in other totally unrelated activities, highlighting, on several occasions, the employment of irregular foreigners on the national territory.
The study of the documentation collected, the information acquired from offended and informed people on the facts and the consequent investigations on the information present in various social networks, they allowed us to identify the name of the group that identifies with the nickname “AK47 Carpi or AK47 Gang“, on whose profile there are some videos and photographs in which the members of the group show themselves in a threatening attitude, holding sticks and clubs, flaunting on several occasions large amounts of money and the possession of large-engined cars.
In relation to the attempted murder of 6 October 2022, the chilling videos of the victim of the attempted murder with the injuries sustained by one of the participants in the punitive expedition were acquired. On some occasions the suspects posted images on their social profiles in which, apparently in their territory of origin, they were holding firearms, in particular automatic rifles of the AK-47 Kalashnikov type.
The reconstruction of the telephone traffic generated by the cards used by some of the suspects and the comparison with the various criminal episodes for which proceedings are being carried out, in addition to allowing us to demonstrate the presence of some of them at the site of the attacks, has made it possible to reconstruct the entire network of contacts between the various members who, before each event, maintained close telephone contact with each other. The subsequent telephone and electronic interception activities, an essential investigative tool, made it possible to collect important sources of evidence.
Of the twenty recipients of the measure in custody, three are already detained in the Modena prison, having been arrested by the PM for the attempted murder of last April 7, while others have been traced in the provinces of Brescia, Mantua and Piacenza. The Digos Divisions of the aforementioned provinces collaborated in the research activities.
