The suspects allegedly forced the owners and managers of agricultural land to cede the availability of large areas to be used for illegal grazing of livestock, imposing the payment of negligible fees
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Blitz in Agrigento by the state police on behalf of the Palermo district anti-mafia directorate, which involved 5 people, two of whom had already been definitively convicted of mafia association and accused of extortion and illicit competition with threats or violence, aggravated by the mafia method and of having facilitated the mafia association called Cosa Nostra. The policemen of the Agrigento flying squad carried out the five precautionary custody orders as part of an investigation into the Santa Margherita Belice mafia family. The provision was notified in prison to the boss Pietro Campo, 72 years old, believed to be a loyalist of Matteo Messina Denaro whom he met in recent years while on the run. Giovanni Campo, 33, also ended up in prison; Piero Guzzardo, 45 years old and Pasquale Ciaccio, 58 years old, also already convicted in the past for mafia. Domenico Bavetta, 42, was placed under house arrest. The investigation also hypothesizes a mafia extortion ring.
The investigations
The investigations led to the discovery of the illicit management of agro-pastoral activities in the Girgento area of Santa Margherita del Belice, Montevago and Sambuca di Sicilia up to the border with Contessa Entellina (Palermo). The suspects, making use of the “undisputed intimidating force”, explain the investigators, “deriving from being recognized as top exponents” of the mafia district of Santa Margherita di Belice, would have implemented an “incisive control” on the agro-pastoral economy of the area as well as on the related use of agricultural land in the Belicino hinterland. In particular, the suspects, using the mafia method, would have forced the owners and managers of agricultural land to cede the availability of large areas of land to be used for illegal grazing of livestock, imposing the payment of negligible fees which, in some cases, would not have been not even paid.
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Blitz carried out thanks to the rebellion of some victims
The control of agricultural land would also have translated into a ban on carrying out collateral agricultural activities, imposing dominance over other people’s real estate, also functional to maximizing the profits deriving from dairy production. The investigations also made use of the contribution of some victims who opposed the control system of the sector: in some cases, after threshing by the owners, the foodstuffs were acquired and packaged by the suspects, without paying any compensation.
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Video of boss Campo with Messina Denaro
It belonged to the boss Pietro Campo, one of the 5 arrested in the anti-mafia blitz of the Agrigento state police, the farm where on the morning of 7 December 2009, an SUV was filmed on video whose passenger was – according to investigators – Matteo Messina Denaro: the last sighting, many years before the capture, of the fugitive. Campo is considered to be a loyalist to Messina Denaro, a leading member of the Santa Margherita di Belice mafia family and with solid ties to members of the Cosa Nostra.
