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Immediate trial has been ordered at the Court of Agrigento against the crew alleged to be couriers of the largest quantity of cocaine ever seized in Italy. The details.
The judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Agrigento ordered the immediate trial. And next July 15th, before the criminal section chaired by Alfonso Malato, the first hearing is scheduled against 15 people of Ukrainian, Turkish and Azerbaijani nationality, members of the crew alleged to be the couriers of the maxi seizure of cocaine, more than 5 tons , by the Guardia di Finanza, dating back to 19 July. A fishing boat, the “Ferdinando d’Aragona”, set sail from Bagnara Calabra, with an Italian on board, i.e. the commander of Calabrian origin, two Tunisians, a Frenchman and an Albanian.
The Financiers of the Provincial Command of Palermo and the air-naval team intercepted and blocked him. The five were arrested. The astonishing load, unprecedented in Italy and among the most significant in the world, over 5 tons and 300 kilos of cocaine, was seized. The theater of the extraordinary operation was the stretch of sea in front of the Agrigento coast. On the evening of Tuesday 18 July 2023, the pilots of a Fiamme Gialle plane engaged in a reconnaissance service in the Sicilian channel and for a few days been attracted by a suspicious merchant ship, the “Plutus” ship, flying the flag of Palau, in the archipelago of the Philippines, they notice that a trawler departing from the Calabrian coast is approaching the same ship.
At night the “investigative diagnosis” was completed, that is: the merchant ship, therefore the “mother” ship, is stationed at the limits of the territorial waters and awaits the fishing boat, probably for an illicit transshipment. In fact, in the early hours of Wednesday 19 July, anomalous operations of accumulation of numerous packages were detected on the deck of the “mother” ship, which were then discharged into the sea towards the fishing vessel which came alongside to recover the cargo thrown into the sea, and which, meanwhile, turn off the Ais tracking system for tracking. The blitz begins. The fishing vessel returns to territorial waters and is captured. On board, cleverly hidden behind paneling that covers a large room, an enormous quantity of narcotics was found.
Other financiers immediately set off in pursuit of the merchant ship, the “mother” ship, obviously an accomplice of the son, the fishing boat. The ship is en route to Turkey, is caught and taken to the port of Palermo: the crew is made up of 15 transferred to the “Pagliarelli” prison in Palermo and now on trial at the courthouse in via Mazzini in Agrigento. And the fishing boat was escorted to Porto Empedocle. Rebuilding the assembly line of the maxi transport of cocaine to Sicily, the 140 meter long ship “Plutus” raised anchor in June from Santo Domingo, then stopped in Trinidad and Tobago, and then in the port of Las Palmas, capital of Gran Canaria, an island in the Canary archipelago, from where it left on 7 July, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and finally arrived in the Sicily Channel, waiting for the trawler that set sail from the Calabrian coast.
Angelo Ruoppolo (Teleacras)
