June 17, 2024, 4.45pm
1 minute read
PALERMO – The scene is one of those seen in films. Vincenzo Vella was sitting in the barber’s chair. Rosario Montalbano had been summoned because he “had started off on the wrong foot”. He was opening a betting shop without permission.
Vincenzo Vella is an old acquaintance of the police. Already convicted of mafia charges, he was arrested again in a raid by the flying squad last May. The operation is the one that made the role of Giuseppe Arduino, mafioso from Brancaccio released from prison in 2020 after nine years in prison.
Rosario Montalbano, extortion and drugs mana few months ago he became a collaborator of justice.
“While I was doing the work, Vincenzo Vella showed up and told me that I needed an authorization and I told him that I already had one,” Montalbano said. And the summons came: “While she was doing her hair, she told me I couldn’t open the betting shop anymore.”
Montalbano believed he had not violated the rules of the Cosa Nostra and went to knock on the door of Giuseppe Di Fatta, also now detained. The mystery revealed: it was the owner of a betting center who asked Vella to intervene to block the competition. Giuseppe Di Fatta “promised me that he would make me open up, there had been a misunderstanding”.
The story confirms two things. The first: the mafia still regulates life in the suburbs, and beyond, of the city of Palermo. The second: the bosses supervise the clandestine betting ringwhose money flows are disguised behind apparently legitimate activities.
Montalbano’s words follow the context that emerged from the investigations about the murder of rising boss Giancarlo Romanokilled by the men he himself wanted to kill.
Published on
June 17, 2024, 4.45pm
