The criminal dynamics of the criminal association linked to Cosa Nostra operating in Vittoria and other municipalities in the province of Ragusa were at the center of the anti-mafia investigation by the Catania DDA, coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Sebastiano Ardita and the deputy Gabriele Fragalà, with the execution of a precautionary custody order in prison for 16 suspects by the Carabinieri and the Financial Police. Soldiers from the provincial command of the Ragusa Army arrested 12 people and the Fiamme Gialle Etna carried out the precautionary custody order in prison against four other suspects. The investigation, called “Fenice”, is based on investigations, from 2016 to 2023, by the Carabinieri of the Investigative unit of Ragusa and the Economic and Financial Police unit of Catania.
Among the recipients of the provision is Emanuele “Elio” Greco, considered to be the leader of the group, which, when he was detained, was led by Gaetano Valenti, appointed “pro tempore contact person” and understood “Tano a barber”. Greco also commanded from home where he had been under house arrest since 2021, using it as a “logistical base” also for meetings with the leaders of other gangs.
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According to the Catania DDA, it emerged from the investigations that the group «perpetrated an indeterminate series of crimes against life, individual safety, personal freedom, assets, and acquired, directly or indirectly, the management or in any case the control of economic activities, with particular reference to the sector of production and marketing of packaging for fruit and vegetables”. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, “connections with other mafia groups would have emerged as a result of his operations, including the Santapaola-Ercolano clans of Catania, Nardo di Lentini (Syracuse) and Rinzivillo” of Gela (Caltanissetta)”. The group, the Etna District Prosecutor’s Office claims, would also have committed “intimidating actions against Vittoria criminals to pay for drug shipments supplied by other clans” who had turned to them for “credit recovery”. During the investigations, «critical moments» also emerged with «members of the group who organized themselves to carry out acts of force with the use of weapons against Vittoria’s criminals, which, thanks to the timely intervention of the investigators, were resolved without bloodshed. ».
The sector of production and marketing of packaging for fruit and vegetables in Vittoria, in the Ragusa area, was a clan affair.
The gang led by Greco, with his sons Nuccio and Alberto, the DDA disputes, would have had «the management of entrepreneurial affairs in the packaging sector, making use of the tools of mafia subjugation and making use of its recognized criminal charisma in the environment of the supply of packaging to influence and condition free competition”. In this way, observes the Prosecutor’s Office, “they would have imposed 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 the Etna DDA, against Emanuele Greco, which also involved various companies.
«In other words – reconstructs the DDA of Catania – the criminal gang, operating with often illicit and unscrupulous methods and interacting with other criminal entities who had recycled themselves in that territory as entrepreneurs, he would continue to impose his leadership within the lucrative sector of the local market, with particular reference to the sale of materials and packaging for product packaging fruit and vegetables, very flourishing in the territorial context, with a predominantly agricultural vocation, of the municipality of Vittoria”. From the investigations, carried out from 2016 to 2023, by the Carabinieri of the Investigative unit of Ragusa and by soldiers of the Economic and Financial Police unit of Catania, “the collusion of companies active in the sector of marketing of petroleum products which, thanks to the network of reports by Emanuele Greco, they 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”.
The names of those arrested are: Amore Giuseppe, Francesco Bella, Orazio Mattia Bella, Gianluca Di Natale, Mauro and Roberto Gesso, Raffaele Giudice, Roberto Greco, Emanuele Greco, Nuccio Greco, Eugenio Gulizzi, Giuseppe Licata, Maurizio Piedigaci, Roberto Salerno, Gaetano Valenti, Filadelfo Zarbano.
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