Syracuse, held hostage for drug debt: freed by carabinieri

He was first taken hostage for a drug debt, then was freed by the police. The investigations conducted by the Carabinieri of the Ragusa Investigative Unit and the Modica Company following the events that occurred on the evening of last Thursday 20 June in Scicli, during which two rival gangs clashed in the Jungi district with the explosion of two shots of a firearm, allowed it to emerge that the reason for the dispute was linked to the non-payment of a drug shipment. The military personnel, in fact, ascertained that among the group made up of young twenty-year-olds of Modican and Sciclitan origin there were two boys who had managed to have just under 4 kg of hashish delivered to them by some of their peers from Syracuse without paying them the amount due. , quantifiable at around 15 thousand euros, causing violent retaliation by the Syracusan gang. The latter, having arrived in Scicli, intercepted the opposing gang and, in addition to shooting at the members of the local group, managed to kidnap one of them. The investigations carried out by the Carabinieri, in the immediate aftermath of the facts, made it possible to identify one of those who unduly took possession of the drugs: he is a twenty-year-old resident in Modica, of North African origins, who was therefore arrested because he was found in possession of the approximately 4 kg of hashish, recovered during the activities and subjected to seizure. The investigations continued throughout the day on Friday 21st and made it possible to identify the place where the kidnapped person, a 19-year-old resident in Modica, also of North African origins, could have been taken, i.e. a council house near Piazza Santa Lucia di Syracuse, with the aim of inducing his accomplices to return the narcotic they had taken possession of or to pay its commercial value. Given the dangerousness of the subjects implicated in the affair and the possibility that they could have weapons and considering the critical issues of an intervention in a densely populated urban environment, the Special Intervention Group of the Carabinieri based in Livorno was activated for the delicate operation of liberating the young man kidnapped. In the night between Saturday and Sunday, the Carabinieri of the GIS of the Carabinieri, with the support of the First Intervention Units of Catania, of personnel of the Heliported Hunters Squadron of Sigonella and of the territorial component of the military of the Ragusa and Siracusa, therefore carried out raid inside the house in the center of Syracuse, allowing the release of the hostage and the arrest of a minor from Syracuse, close to adulthood, who under threat made thanks also to the availability of a weapon, had detained the 19 year old from Modica against his will. The kidnapped young man, who at the time of his release was in good general health, was nevertheless entrusted to the medical care of the medical staff of the Umberto I hospital in Syracuse as he had a wound on his right shoulder caused by his kidnappers on the evening of the clash between the two gangs in Scicli.