From the investigations it emerges that Cosa Nostra is still strong and is capable of commanding the territory
Packaging, drugs and petroleum products: this was the business of Cosa Nostra in Vittoria (Ragusa). The group that managed the various activities would be headed by Emanuele ‘Elio’ Greco and would have managed to expand to other municipalities in the province.
The picture emerged prior to the execution of the precautionary measures requested by the anti-mafia district prosecutor’s office, specifically by the deputy prosecutor Sebastiano Ardita and the substitute Gabriele Fragalà.
The field investigations were carried out by the soldiers of the Carabinieri Provincial Command of Ragusa and the Provincial Command of the Guardia di Finanza of Catania: from 2016 to 2023 the soldiers also reconstructed the roles assumed over time by 15 other suspects.
For various reasons, the crimes contested by the prosecutor’s office are “mafia-type criminal association, external participation in a mafia association, illicit competition with threats or violence, attempted murder, extortion and attempted extortion, illegal possession of weapons and carrying them in public places, detention, transport and sale of narcotic substances, ideological falsehood committed by private individuals, crimes all aggravated by mafia purposes”.
By operating with other criminal entities, such as the entrepreneurs Consalvo and Puccio, the criminal group 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 vegetable products, very flourishing in the predominantly agricultural territorial context of the municipality of Vittoria. The collusion of companies active in the marketing of petroleum products sector also emerged which, thanks to the network of Elio Greco, 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 companies themselves, making themselves available to Elio Grecowould have made a concrete causal contribution for the purposes of conservation, strengthening and in any case even partial realization of the criminal program of the mafia association.
The mafia group would also have threatened convicted criminals from Vittoria to induce them to pay for quantities of drugs supplied by other clans, who would have turned to the “Greco group” recognizing their operational capabilities in the area.
Connections with Santapaola-Ercolano
The association combined aggression and military strength with entrepreneurial strategies, thus extending its mafia power and territorial control. As evidence of his operations, links with other mafia groups emerged, including the “Santapaola-Ercolano” clans of Catania, “Nardo” of Lentini and “Rinzivillo” of Gela.
The group, the Etna District Attorney’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 “debt collection”. However, 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 to the detriment of Vittoria criminals”, which, thanks to the timely intervention of the investigators, were resolved without bloodshed”.
The role of Greco’s children
The alleged role of Greco’s sons, Nuccio and Alberto, in managing, together with their father Elio, the entrepreneurial business in the packaging sector also emerged. According to investigators, they too would have subjugated the victims using their criminal charisma. In this way, “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 “charge of Elio Greco which also involved various companies, including the family business, ‘Vittoria Pack srl'”.
The father of the two, Elio, has already received “a conviction in the first instance for mafia association aimed at acquiring dominant positions in the Vittoriese area, in the production of packaging, and Vittoria Pack is in the process of being confiscated in the first instance”. The sentence in first instance with an abbreviated sentence was 9 years and 4 months (Operation Ghost Trash); in the second degree he was sentenced to 5 years and 10 months for attempted murder. The seizures made for Greco (currently under first degree confiscation) amount to 35 million euros between companies and other assets and properties.
Gaetano Valenti, understood “Tano u’ barber”
The investigative activities would also have brought to light the role of the convicted felon Gaetano Valentisaid “Tano u’ barber”. It would have been him, in the time when Elio Greco he was in prison, holding the reins of the organization. Greco, when he was under house arrest in January 2021, the magistrates report, would have “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 arrest of Gaetano Valentiin 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 narcotics, weapons and extortion sectors.
Fratelli Gesso: from the double attempted murder to the arrest
Among those arrested, also the protagonists of recent news events in the Ragusa area. On June 3rd of a year ago, the brothers Mauro Gesso43 years old, and Roberto Gesso, 50 years old, from Scicli, had committed a double attempted murder in Scicli and had been spotted on the run and arrested in Sala Consilina; both are convicted of mafia and other drug-related crimes. Raffaele Giudiceamong those arrested today, was hit in the elbow in the courtyard of a trucking company, on the state road between Vittoria and Gela right from Elio Greco, who was convicted of attempted murder for this episode. It was April 2019 when Greco allegedly pulled out a gun and, at the height of an argument for economic reasons, pointed the weapon at Raffaele Giudicefiring a shot.
