Marsala, drugs bought with citizenship income: three arrests

May 16, 2024, 12.35pm

2 min read

MARSALA – Three men and a woman were arrested by the Marsala police for drug dealing, improper use of citizenship income cards, money laundering and fraudulent transfer of valuables and extortion.

Pre-trial detention in prison was ordered for Alessia Angileri, aged 33, for her partner Andrea Nizza, aged 36, for Alessio Cristopher Pantaleo, also aged 36, all living in the working-class neighborhood of Sappusi and already in prison as part of the “Virgilio” operation (11 arrests for drug dealing on 17 February 2023).

In today’s operation, ordered by the investigating judge, at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, the preventive seizure of a tobacco shop in the popular neighborhood of Amabilina was also ordered, considered by investigators to be a real “ATM” for pushers. Vehicles and money worth around 50 thousand euros were also seized.

The precautionary measure of the obligation to report to the police was ordered against the 32-year-old owner of the tobacco shop with a simultaneous interdiction of the ban on carrying out business activities.

Angileri and Pantaleo are under investigation for extortion: they would have forced the assignees of a social housing in Sappusi to leave the house, threatening to set it on fire, before taking possession of the house (owned by the Iacp), occupying it illegally.

The investigation began in the aftermath of the “Virgilio” operation – also the one carried out by the Carabinieri of Marsala – who dismantled the historic drug dealing square of Sappusi. In all, last year, there were 14 suspects.

Thanks to the discovery of accounting notes relating to the drug dealing activity, further investigations were started which would have enabled the police to reconstruct the method used by some suspects to obtain payment for the drugs sold (cocaine, crack and heroin).

Consumers, often in financial difficulty, would have purchased narcotics on credit, leaving their citizenship income cards (with related pin) in the hands of the pushers, who, thanks to the complicity of the Amabilina tobacconist, would withdraw the cash monthly, leaving 10% of the amount withdrawn to the owner of the tobacconist.