Details- AMTwo thousand
04 June 2024
Five people were arrested by the state police – two of whom have already been definitively convicted of mafia association – on charges of extortion and illicit competition aggravated by the mafia method and aiding and abetting Cosa Nostra.
According to the investigators, the group illicitly controlled the agro-pastoral activities in the Girgento area of Santa Margherita del Belice, Montevago and Sambuca di Sicilia up to the border with Contessa Entellina (PA).
The five made themselves known as top exponents of the Santa Margherita di Belice mafia district and, thanks to their mafia ‘fame’, they allegedly forced the owners and managers of agricultural land to hand over the availability of large areas of land to be used for illegal grazing of the livestock, imposing the payment of negligible fees which, in some cases, were not even paid.
The victims also allegedly suffered a series of intimidating acts such as arson, cutting of crops and theft of livestock.
The control of agricultural land would have resulted, in some cases, also in a ban on carrying out collateral agricultural activities that would alter the free grazing of the flocks, thus effectively imposing “a stringent predominance over the real estate of others, also functional to the maximization of the profits deriving from dairy production,” the investigators write.
