Scicli – In the early hours of 12 June 2024, soldiers from the Provincial Carabinieri Command of Ragusa and the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Catania executed an Order for Precautionary Custody in Prison, issued by the GIP Office at the Court of Catania , at the request of this District Anti-Mafia Prosecutor’s Office, concerning a total of 16 suspects, held responsible in various capacities for the crimes of “mafia-type criminal association, external competition in mafia association, illicit competition with threat or violence, attempted murder, extortion and attempted extortion , illegal possession of weapons and carrying them in public places, possession, transport and sale of narcotic substances, ideological falsehood committed by private individuals, crimes all aggravated by mafia purposes”.
The precautionary measure carried out by the Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of Ragusa and by the Financiers of the Organized Crime Investigation Group of the Economic and Financial Police Unit of Catania in the Iblea and Etna provinces enhances and systematizes the results of the complex investigations carried out by the aforementioned departments starting from 2016 and until 2023.
The investigations, in the current phase of the proceedings in which the cross-examination with the parties has not yet been established, would have made it possible to reconstruct:
* the criminal dynamics of the criminal association attributable to Cosa Nostra operating in the territory of Vittoria (RG) and in other municipalities in the province of Ragusa, headed by GRECO Emanuele, known as “Elio”;
* the roles over time assumed by the other suspects, recipients of precautionary measures, monitoring their criminal activities both in the period in which GRECO Emanuele was in a state of freedom and during the period of detention.
The most recent judicial police activities would have revealed that the convicted criminal Gaetano Valenti, understood as “Tano u’ barbiere”, would have been invested by Emanuele Greco, during the period of the latter’s detention, with the role of pro tempore contact person for the organization criminal led by the same. The investigative activity received further impetus after Greco, placed under house arrest in January 2021, allegedly used his home as a logistical base in which to hold confidential meetings with his acolytes, with top exponents of groups attributable to Cosa Nostra and operating in other territorial contexts as well as with important entrepreneurs in the packaging sector, effectively taking up its role as a reference point for the mafia association and reaffirming its influence on the territory.
The technical monitoring and the activities carried out against Greco, his children, Valenti and other subjects believed to belong to the criminal group would have made it possible to acquire valuable circumstantial elements regarding the existence of a mafia-type criminal association which , making use of the power of intimidation deriving from the associative bond and the condition of subjugation and silence that derives from it, would have perpetrated an indeterminate series of crimes against life, individual safety, personal freedom, property, and acquired, in directly or indirectly, the management or in any case control of economic activities, with particular reference to the sector of production and marketing of packaging for fruit and vegetables. The association would have combined aggression and military strength with entrepreneurial strategies, thus extending its mafia power and territorial control. As evidence of its operations, links with other mafia groups would have emerged, including the “Santapaola-Ercolano” clans of Catania, “Nardo” of Lentini, “Rinzivillo” of Gela.
At the same time, the role of the sons, Nuccio and Alberto, would also have come to light in the management, together with their father Emanuele, of the entrepreneurial affairs in the packaging sector, making use of the tools of mafia subjugation and making use of their recognized criminal charisma in the packaging supply environment to influence and condition free competition. In this way, they would have established themselves as intermediaries, effectively bypassing the provision for seizure of assets and availability with a total value of 35 million euros, issued by the Court of Catania, at the request of this Office, against Emanuele Greco which had also concerned various companies, including the family business “VITTORIA PACK SRL”.
In other words, the criminal gang, operating in often illicit and unscrupulous ways and interacting with other criminal entities, such as the Consalvos and the Puccios, who also recycled themselves in this territorial context as entrepreneurs, would have continued to impose its leadership within the lucrative sector of the local market, with particular reference to the sale of materials and packaging for the packaging of fruit and vegetables, very flourishing in the territorial context, with a predominantly agricultural vocation, of the municipality of Vittoria.
The collusion of companies active in the marketing of petroleum products would also have emerged which, thanks to Emanuele Greco’s network of relationships, would have managed to procure fuel of illicit origin, thus increasing their turnover by being able to count on the competitiveness deriving from low cost fuels. At the same time, the same companies, by placing themselves at the disposal of GRECO Emanuele, would have made a concrete causal contribution for the purposes of preserving, strengthening, and in any case even partially realizing the criminal program of the mafia association.
Furthermore, the arrest of Gaetano Valenti, which took place in April 2021, found in possession of an illegally possessed clandestine firearm and a significant quantity of narcotics, would have made it possible to highlight how the group’s interests also encompassed the drugs, weapons and extortion.
On this point, evidence emerges in which the mafia group would have carried out intimidating actions towards other convicted criminals in Vittoria to induce them to pay for quantities of narcotics supplied by other cliques, who would have turned to the Greco group recognizing their operational capabilities in the area. Likewise, critical moments were monitored in which the members of the group organized themselves to carry out acts of force with the use of weapons to the detriment of Vittoria convicts, which were resolved thanks to the timely intervention of the investigators. without bloodshed.
At the end of the investigations carried out, the Etna GIP, at the request of this Office, therefore deemed there to be a serious circumstantial framework regarding the 16 subjects under investigation, ordering their precautionary custody in prison. In execution of this provision, 12 subjects were arrested and transferred to various penal institutions by the Carabinieri of Ragusa while the other 4 arrests were carried out by the Financiers of the Etna PEF Unit.
The investigative activity in question is part of the broader framework of the actions carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Catania, the Ragusa Carabinieri and the Etna Financial Police aimed at combating mafia-type criminal associations and the “entrepreneurial mafia”. ”, in order to avoid the increasingly dangerous attempts to pollute the entrepreneurial fabric and influence free competition.
The names of the sixteen people subjected to the precautionary measure in prison are:
1. LOVE Joseph;
2. BELLA Francesco;
3. BELLA Orazio Mattia;
4. AT CHRISTMAS Gianluca;
5. GESSO Mauro;
6. PLASTER Roberto;
7. JUDGE Raffaele;
8. GRECO Alberto;
9. GRECO Emanuele;
10. GRECO Nuccio;
11. GULIZZI Eugenio;
12. LICATA Giuseppe;
13. PIEDIGACI Maurizio;
14. SALERNO Roberto;
15. VALENTI Gaetano;
16. ZARBANO Filadelfo.
