They were 20 transports and deliveries of large quantities of cocaine in just under six months which would have been carried out by the criminal organization defeated this morning by the Catania Police in the operation called “Devotion” which, coordinated by the DDA of Catania, shed light on a extensive cocaine trafficking between Calabria and Sicily and led to the arrest of 13 people from Catania and Calabria.
They are under investigation for various reasons for association aimed at trafficking narcotic substances such as cocaine, possession and carrying of firearms and drug dealing. Another 16 people are also under investigation in the investigation. In the operation, the Flying Squad of the Catania Police Headquarters availed itself of the collaboration of the equivalent investigative bodies of Reggio Calabria and Syracuse and was assisted by the Central Operational Service, acting under the direct coordination of the Central Anti-Crime Directorate of the State Police, which sent several crews of the Crime Prevention Department. The restrictive measure includes the results of a complex and detailed investigative activity started in June 2020.
The activities initially involved the group led by Carmelo Scilioaged 50 – among those arrested – considered among the most notorious cocaine traffickers in Catania. The investigators traced back to his cocaine supplier, the Calabrian Bruno Cidoni, 40 years old – also reached by the order – who had been in business with Catania criminal groups for years and who had long established himself in Catania with his own base operational in the San Giovanni Galermo district. During the investigation, several seizures of narcotic substances – a total of 11 kilos of cocaine) and weapons (a special 38 caliber revolver with the serial number abraded and ammunition) were made and 90,300 euros in cash were seized, sums which had been on a wall of Cidoni’s house.
Cidoni was a devotee of the Madonna di Polsi, in Aspromonte. The latter had a small image in the cover of his mobile phone and on several occasions the couriers who brought the cocaine to Calabria in Sicily had a rosary with them.
